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Xcweirs International Series 



Notes from the 'News 9 



BY 

JAMES PAYN 

AUTHOR OF "THICKER THAN WATER," "THE CANON'S WARD," ETC. 



NEW YORK 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 

150 Worth Street, corner Mission Place 



Every work in this series is published by arrangement with the author 



Issued Semi-Weekly. Annual Subscription £30.00 Ju-c iy, 1890, (Extra. 



BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH THE AUTHORS. 




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RECENT ISSUES. 

Long Odds. By Ilawley Smart 30 

On Circumstantial Evidence. Ey Florence Marryat 30 

Miss Kate ; or Concessions of a Caretaker. By Rita 30 

A Vagabond Lover. By Rita ., 20 

The Search for Basil Lyndhurst. By Rosa Kouchette Carey 30 

The Wing of Azrael. By Mona Caird 30 

The Fog Princes. By F. Warden 30 

John Herring. By S. Baring G0..I1 1 50 

The Fatal Puryne. By F. C. Phillips and C. J. Wills 80 

Harvest. By J*ohn Strange Winter 30 

Mehalah. By S. Baring-Gould 50 

A Troublesome Girl. By The Bueh- &.- 30 

Berrick Vaughan, Novelist. By Edna Lyall 30 

Sophy Carmine. By John Strange Winter 30' 

The Luck of the House. Bv Adeline Sergeat.t SO 

The Pennycomequicks. By S. Baring-Gouia 50 

Jezebel's Friends. Ey Bcra Russell , 30 

Comedy of a Country House. By Julian riturgis 30 

The Piccadilly Puzzle. By Fergus Hume 30 

That Other Woman. By Annie Thomas 30 

The Curse of Carne's Hold. By G. A. Henty 30 

Uncle Piper of Piper's Hill. By Tasma 30 

A Life Sentence. By Adeline Sergeant 30 

Kit Wyndham. By Frank Barrett 30 

The Tree of Knowledge. By G. M. Robins 30 

Roland Oliver. By Justin McCarthy 30 

Sheba. By Rita. 3C 

Sylvia Arden. By Oswald Crawfurd 30 

Young Mr. Ainslie's Courtship. By F- C. Phillips 30. 

The Haute Noblesse. By George Manville Fenn 30 

Mount Eden. By Florence Marryat 30 

Buttons. By John Strange Winter 30 

Nurse Revel's Mistake. By Florence Warden 00 

Arminell. By S. Baring-Gould 50 

The Lament of Bives. By Walter Besant 30 

Mrs. Bob. By John Strange Winter 3<J 



CONTINUED ON THIRD PAGE OF COVER 







4 



* 



X 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS; 



JAMES PAYN, 

Author of ' By Proxy,'' ' Lost Sir MassingberdJ 
t Under One Moojy etc. 




NEW YORK: 
JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 

No. 150 Worth Street. 






\* 



CoPTTiWQHT, 1890, 
BY 

^OHN W. LOVfiLL COMPANY' 



NOTES FEOM THE 'NEWS.' 



In all middle-class households, where there are 
boys, the subject which to-day is spoken of above all 
others is what they call for short — but certainly nei- 
ther for * love ' nor for ' euphony ' — their ' exams.' 
The youth of England are perpetually going in for 
competitive examinations, and getting 'plucked,' or 
'spun' or 'floored' ; and, as there are generally about 
a hundred candidates to ten vacancies, this is not much 
to be wondered at. In the old days at sea, the last man 
up the rigging, and the last man down on the deck, 
was always flogged to encourage the rest to activity. 
It was urged by the few humanitarians who existed at 
that epoch that, since somebody must be last, the 
punishment was rather unfair ; but, after all, there 
were only two sufferers; in the case of each 'exam.' 
there are ninety. For my part, 1 feel for these poor 
lads immensely. I can, of course, do nothing for 
them , but the following incident — though taken from 
the records of crime — cannot fail to give them at least 
a momentary satisfaction. It is a curious account 
enough of how, when competitive examinations first 
began, an examiner himself was ' floored ' instead of 
the candidate. 



4 NOTES FROM THE 'NEtVS: 

In 1837, Mr. Charles Wadham Wyndham Penrud- 
dock went up to Apothecaries' Hall for his profes- 
sional ordeal. His strong point was anatomy, yet his 
four examiners would confine their questions to chemis- 
try and other matters whereof he knew much less, 
which must, no. doubt, have been very annoying to 
him. One — Mr. Hardy — was especially severe upon 
him about therapeutics. ' Patience is a good nag, but 
she will bolt,' and at last the poor wretch inquired : 
' How the deuce can I answer you, if you badger me 
so ? ' This retort was not in the programme at all, 
and evoked some very rebukeful language : where- 
upon Mr. Charles Wadham Wyndham Penruddock, 
with the apparently irrelevant observation that ' He 
was of a good family in the West of England, 1 knocked 
his examiner down. I am sorry to say lie did it with a 
life-preserver ( which, ' along with a small bottle of 
gin ' ) he happened to have in his pocket. For this, 
he was tried at the Old Bailey for 'an attempt to maim 
and disable.' However, being found to have 'an 
excellent character for humanity' — 'the badgering, 
perhaps being also taken into account — lie was only 
convicted of a common assault, and sentenced to twelve 
months' imprisonment. 



Everyone is asking who the book-loving lawyer 
alluded to in the pleasant article on ' Literary Volup- 
tuaries ' in Blackwood may be ; and though I think I 
am in a position to answer the question, I am not 
going to do so. The writer of the paper says the 
gentleman is 'alive and sensitive'; but, if he is the 
man I take him for, he is also hasty and athletic. I 
have not a word to say in depreciation of the charm- 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWSS 5 

ing picture that has been drawn of him. Many a 
time have I sat at his hospitable board, and afterwards 
enjoyed in his noble library the choice cigars that he 
never touches himself. It is hardly necessary to 
enlarge upon the virtues of any man who, being a non- 
smoker, yet provides tobacco for his friends. Good 
nature can no further go. Still — the writer who 
draws that graphic picture of my host and friend 
omits a touch which, although in no degree derogating 
from his character as a book-lover, seems to me essen- 
tial to it. The true bibliomaniac ought, as is well 
known, to have three copies of every volume — one to 
gloat upon on its shelf, one to take in the hand and 
read, and one to lend. It is in this last act — that of 
lending a book — or rather, in the painful- (though not 
inextricable) position of being asked to lend one, that 
this literary voluptuary should have been described. 



A more liberal host does not exist. The best viands, 
the finest wines, are always at a friend's disposal. I 
believe that even an application for a check would 
meet with the most cheerful assent ; while his most 
costly books are at the service of even the careless guest 
who smokes a cigarette as he turns over the leaves. 
The expression of the host's countenance is, it is true, 
itself a folio, as he watches that act of sacrilege ; but 
he permits it. His books, however, are only 4 to be 
consumed on the premises.' Where he draws the line, 
hard and fast, is at lending them. He has a little room 
apart from his library, in which are two or three hun- 
dred block-books — wooden effigies meant to supply in 
the shelves the place of volumes lie has loaned. On 
the backs are (supposed to be) written the names of 



6 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

the borrowers. These dummies always remind me of 
the collection of ear-trumpets gathered by the talkative 
deaf lady, who never listened to anything anyone had 
to say to her. There is only one wooden volume on 
his shelves, and I doubt whether even that 'is a bona- 
jide substitute. It should be entitled k The Shocking 
Example,' for I notice when there is any talk of bor- 
rowing books, the proprietor enlarges upon the value 
of the missing work, and bewails the carelessness or 
knavery of the person who, having borrowed it, died 
suddenly, and left behind him no instructions for its 
return. When he adds that, man being mortal, this 
same wrong may be done to him (the speaker) any day, 
in the case of any book, even though a person might 
have the most honest intentions of returning it, the 
idea of borrowing generally fades away in the visitor's 
breast ; or, if it has taken shape, the application is not 
renewed. 



As a rule I have little sympathy with burglars. They 
alarm me. But there is good, people say, in everybody. 
There was certainly good in the man who broke into 
the Great Western Railway Station at West Drayton 
and took — much less than he might have taken. The 
case is, I believe, unprecedented. 4 The drawer,' said 
the prisoner, in his defence, ' from which I abstracted 
the gold had much gold in it, but I only took what I 
absolutely wanted. I took it from a great and powerful 
company, who would never feel the loss of it.' (Yet, 
unfortunately, they missed it.) ' Though there is dis- 
honor attaching to my conduct, there is, also, I venture 
to think, a certain amount of honor too. I throw 
myself on the mercy of the court, and hope I shall be 



NOTES FROM THE WMWS: 7 

done unto as I have done to others.' The Judge seems 
to have so far followed the course thus suggested to 
him as to give the prisoner, not all he might have given 
him, but only some of it; and in my opinion he might 
have been even still more lenient. Wilh a burglar of 
this sort one could get on reasonably enough. In leav- 
ing out one's plate-basket on the landing, as usual, to 
prevent his coming upstairs, one would feel confident 
that only so much would be taken as he w absolutely 
wanted.' The number of spoons and forks would 
depend upon the extent of his own family circle. 



A LADY at Birmingham has got into trouble for 
using her baby as a missile weapon. It has been de- 
scanted upon as an unparalleled proceeding, as though 
no woman had ever s thrown her baby ' at anyone before. 
Upon consideration, however, this will be admitted to 
be not an uncommon practice. The sex, indeed, are 
given to throw — or ' cast up,' as it is less gracefully 
termed — their relatives at other people. Who that has 
married a widow has not had her first husband thrown 
at him again and again ? I have a distinct recollection 
— as one of the best of boys — of having been thrown 
by my mother many times at my brothers and sisters. 
Mr. Corney Grain, speaking delicately of the dangers 
of handling a baby, compares it with a poached egg. 
To throw eggs at people is common enough ; but 
poached eggs ? 1 have only heard of the Birming- 
ham incident fragmentarily. I wonder what really 
happened, not only to the baby, but to its opponent ! 



A learned professor has been writing a book upon 
{/he Art of Conversation — a curious source, indeed, for 



8 NOTES FROM THE 'MEWSS 

such a work to proceed from — but then he is Irish, 
which may account for it. Professors in Ireland may 
be very agreeable company, though Planche* tells us 
that the wit of the lower orders there is monstrously 
exaggerated, and offered to back a single stand of 
London hansom cabmen for repartee against all the car- 
drivers in Dublin. There are things, however, in our 
author's book besides his profession which makes me 
suspicious of his capability to teach us how to talk. 
He mentions, for example, by way of complaint, that 
ladies in Dublin, ' unless of the highest classes,' do not 
talk politics. Surely politics is the dullest subject of 
conversation even among men (unless, indeed, they 
quarrel over it), and in women's lips is unbecoming 
indeed. If conversation is not monologue (for which 
it is often mistaken), it is still less discord. A discussion 
on great principles may, of course, be interesting enough ; 
but the question whether Boodle or Foodie is to govern 
the country — which is what political talk generally con- 
cerns itself with — is scarcely a topic to be encouraged. 
Again, the Professor says : 4 If you find the company 
dull, blame yourself;' a monstrous piece of mock 
modesty. This is on a par with the foolish praise given 
to those who * lift the conversation.' What sort of 
conversation must that be which wants lifting ? 



If, instead of attempting to teach an art which is not, 
in fact, communicable to others, our Professor would 
tell us how to put a stop to those who impede conver- 
sation — the Bores — he would indeed deserve well of 
his fellow creatures. I have only known one man who 
could do this neatly. I saw him do it to Admiral Nipper 
at his own table. Everyone knows the Admiral — or, 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 9 

rather, did know him, for he has gone aloft. He was 
called the teredo navolis, from his tremendous powers of 
boredom. At sea, where people could not get away 
from him, he killed many a fellow-passenger, no doubt ; 
and at his hospitable board, where he had things almost 
as much his own way, he was terrible indeed. He had 
one story which, like those in i The Arabian Nights,' 
could positively not be told in a single evening. Never 
shall I forget the occasion when having proceeded 
with it for more than an hour, it was taken out of his 
lips by an audacious guest, stripped of its redundancies 
in two minutes, and sharpened up to the nicest point, 
but not beyond it — was returned gracefully to the 
gallant seaman for conclusion. That benefactor of his 
species has also left us, doubtless ' for good.' The 
mention of him 'reminds me,' as the Admiral used to 
say, ' of an anecdote.' Walking with me one day by 
some gigantic gas-works, we talked of Tennyson. He 
spoke of his marvellous gift for clothing even a com- 
monplace matter in the garb of poetry ; whereupon I 
remarked that those gasometers would puzzle him. 
4 Not at all,' was the reply, 4 he has not only immortalized 
them in verse, but described their financial success : 

' And mellow metres more than cent, by cent. ' 
To apply on the instant the treasure of the mind, with 
wit, to the passing topic is, indeed, the very perfection 
of the i art of conversation.' 



Even Mr. Balfour's enemies, and he has many, will 
not deny him the attribute of courage ; and never has 
he shown himself more audacious than in his speech 
upon the choice of books. This is a subject upon 
which the Professors of Culture have been hammering 



10 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

for some time without producing one spark of genuine 
interest; the only advantage from it has been gained 
by the newspapers and magazines, which have got 
their ' copy ' out of them for nothing. The truth of 
the matter is, that a man can no more indicate a par- 
ticular course of reading to benefit another whom he 
does not know, than a doctor can prescribe pills for a 
patient with whose needs he is unacquainted. More- 
over, no one but a prig sets himself solemnly down 
before a row of books 4 to improve his mind.' Men 
read to lighten the load of toil ; to open vistas of 
thought which would be otherwise closed to them, and 
which they have a natural desire to explore ; and if 
there is one resolution more firmly planted in their 
breasts than another, it is never to go to school again. 
Nothing is more amusing than the wrath that has been 
aroused in our philosophers by the discovery that in 
all our public, libraries the run upon fiction is ten times 
that upon any other branch of literature , yet nothing 
can be simpler than the reason : not only 4 the proper ' 
but the most attractive ' study of mankind is man.' 



A year or two ago our barristers had rather a rough 
time of it; their little ways of taking fees for services 
they never performed were dwelt upon by the members 
of « the lower branch of the profession ' with consider- 
able pertinacity. The gentlemen of the long robe 
tided over it, and are now having their innings. There 
is scarcely a week in which, in some law-court or 
another, a 'solor' does not catch it from the Bench 
for neglect of duty to his client. The following is a 
story which, it is reasonable to suppose, emanates from 
one who wears a wig. A client requests his solicitor, 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS* H 

Mr. A, to bring about an interview with his counsel, 
Mr. B. The three meet together, and B, having been 
put into possession of the facts of the case, expresses 
his opinion that it has not a leg to stand upon, and 
that they had much better not go into court. The 
client acquiesces, and A and B walk away together. 
4 What on earth made you give the man such advice 
as that ? ' inquires A indignantly. B. ' Because I am 
certain that he has no case.' A. 4 Good Heavens ! as 
if that were any reason.' B. 4 1 think it a very good 
one. Why, what would you have said to your client, 
if — as was certain to happen — we had been beaten 
all round, and had to pay heavy costs, I should 
like to know?' A. < Well I'll tell you, then. I should 
have told him that the Judge was a fool, and that the 
jury were fools , but that you were the greatest fool 
of all ! ' 



The fogs we have had this year have been made too 
much of— perhaps because they were our first fogs ; but 
like the efforts of a certain famous yet obscure poet, you 
could see something in them if you looked long 
enough, which is not the case of a genuine Peasouper. 
It is not generally known that in Kensal-Green Ceme- 
tery there is a tomb inscribed to a Frenchman — doubt- 
less by some compatriot who wished to make the 
comparison of our Novembers with those of his own 
sunny France as marked as possible — i Suffocated in a 
London Fog.' The most amusing incident I remember 
in connection with this subject happened some years 
ago in Piccadilly, to a distinguished foreigner. It was 
the densest fog of the season, and the usual roadway 
between Apsley House and the park was shrouded in 



12 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.* 

yellow darkness — you could hear the traffic but see 
nothing, not even an omnibus. A well-known figure 
in London at that time, tall and stately, with fur- 
collared coat, was hesitating on the brink of the 
pavement, when his mind was made up for him by 
someone jumping on his shoulders, and hurrying him 
into the viewless space. Once there, he made his way 
across with nervous haste, 4 consumed ' as the novelists 
say, 'with conflicting emotions;' fear, however, over- 
mastered rage until he arrived on the other side in 
safety ; and before he could seize his audacious burden — ■ 
probably some street Arab full of high spirits — he had 
jumped off him as quickly as he had jumped on, and, 
with a 4 Ta-ta, old bloke,' was lost in the fog. 



The Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society is one very 
deserving of public support, and has done much 
towards decreasing the number of habitual criminals. 
Some of its clients, however, are, as may well be im- 
agined, a little difficult to deal with. Their object is 
not so much to get work as to 4 look about them,' and 
to enjoy the pleasures of life, which, after their long 
seclusion, have especial attractions for them ; they are 
not, therefore, easily suited with a trade adapted to 
their talents, and prefer exceptional employments, not 
to be found too quickly. One of them, on being asked 
the other day by a member of the committee what 
position in life he wished to fill, replied : 

4 1 want to be a ship's cook.' 

4 Indeed ! Have you had much experience in 
cooking ? ' 

4 Well, no ; I can't say as I has.' 

4 Dear me. So you think you would like cooking 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 13 

better than being a sailor, eh? How long were you on 
board ship ? ' ♦ 

4 Never was on board a ship in my life,' was the 
unexpected reply. 

That Respectability must keep at least a gig has 
long been understood, but that the wearing of even- 
ing clothes is an indispensable concomitant of Religion 
has, until lately, not been so widely known. A gentle- 
man, who bewails • the coldness in the churches ' (which 
indeed, keeps a good many people at home on Sundays), 
has, however, inaugurated this new dogma in connection 
with his ' drawing-room meetings.' ' It must be under- 
stood,' he says, ' that all who attend these gatherings 
must be in evening dress. We dress to go out to 
dinner ; why should we not dress to read the Bible 
together ? ' He goes on to state that prophetic subjects 
should be avoided, but tea and coffee provided. There 
seems to be no limit to the extent of human folly, or 
else one would say that this individual has found its 
outside fence. Conceive a spiritual pastor confining 
his ministrations to people in drawing-rooms with their 
evening clothes on ! Some importance will probably 
be attached to how they are made. The French noble- 
man of old nattered himself that ' Providence would 
think twice before condemning a gentleman of his 
quality.' The same impunity is thought, perhaps, to 
be extended to those who patronize ' fashionable and 
army ' tailors. 

Some regulations extracted from the rules of a 
Russian club have recently caused considerable amuse- 
ment in this country. They certainly do not err in lack 



14 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

of particularity of details; as, for example, in prohibit- 
ing the use of window-curtains as pocket-handkerchiefs, 
or striking one's antagonist at billiards with the cue ; 
but, after all, this is a fault on the right side. Even 
in the best London clubs there are generally to be 
found one or two offenders, who escape by the very 
heinousness of their crimes, which, just as the laws of 
Draco did not include parricide, are not provided for 
by the regulations. It would, indeed, be rather un- 
pleasant to indicate the character of some of them, 
which might be reasonably objected to in the wilds of 
Siberia. There are also less grave offences committed 
which, nevertheless, not even a Russian Committee 
would be expected to guard against. Years ago in one 
of the quietest and most respectable of London clubs 
there was an old divine who was accustomed to take 
his pints of sherry and champagne with his dinner 
every day,' and his pint of port to follow. On one 
occasion, not feeling 'quite himself,' he thought he 
would dine at home, but told the steward to furnish 
him with his wine as usual. 

" No wine, sir, is allowed to be taken out of the 
club," was the official rejoinder. 

" Bring it here, then, to my table," replied the in- 
valid. 

The three bottles were brought as usual, and the 
reverend gentlemen turned the whole of their con- 
tents, one after another, upon the white damask, and a 
nice mess they made. It was his peculiar method of 
shaking the dust off his shoes, for he never entered the 
club-house doors again. 

Some clubs, on the other hand, have had a reputa- 
tion for ill-conduct on the part of their members which 



NOTES FROM TtlW 'NEWS' 1# 

they do not deserve. A visitor, having been shown 
over a well-known military club, observed that in the 
lavatory the nail-brushes were fastened to the wall. 
In speaking of this to a friend, he observed ; " One 
knows, of course, what strange things are done in 
clubs ; how soap is stolen, and letter-paper pocketed 
by the quire ; but I really was astonished to see that 
necessity for securing the nail-brushes." As a matter 
of fact, the club numbered many one-armed veterans 
among its members, and the articles in question had 
been affixed to the wall for their convenience, 



The controversy about Bacon and Shakespeare is a 
charming example of the survival of the fittest, as a 
subject for joking : the idea is as old as the hills, but 
of infinite jest ; at the same time it could never have 
seriously originated save in a mind entirely devoid of 
humor. For one thing, it supposes Milton — who had 
opportunities for knowing the facts, which the most 
ingenious commentator of modern times can hardly 
possess — addressing Bacon as 

Fancy's child 
Warbling his native wood-notes wild. 

In the whole range of Bacon's (acknowledged) works 
it would be difficult to find wood-notes ; but perhaps 
he wrote them in cipher. This suggestion opens a 
field of literary inquiry extensive indeed; at present 
there is the limit of posterior existence — Milton, for 
instance, could scarcely have written Shakespeare's 
works — but it is possible, such is the growth of the 
higher criticism, that even this difficulty may be over- 
come. If Bacon wrote Shakespeare's works, it is easy 



16 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

indeed to believe he used a cipher ; for the manner in 
which he concealed all trace of Shakespeare's humor in 
the works that pass under his own name is nothing less 
than cryptical. If this new departure in criticism is to 
be extended, it will be very serious for all writers of 
note. To have their claim to fame disputed in their 
lifetime, authors must expect ; but the thought of hav- 
ing their works, after their demise, attributed to some- 
body else, will add, indeed, another terror to death ; 
One may even conceive an ingenious critic making 
out, at all events to his own satisfaction, that Mr. 
Spurgeon (for example)— in a state of mind which he 
would probably stigmatize as " on the down grade " 
— composed the poems which, in our ignorance, we are 
now wont to attribute to Mr. Algernon Swinburne. 



There are three things which every man persuades 
himself he can do better than any other man — poke 
the fire, drive a gig, and write a novel. The last (as 
everybody who has not tried it will bear witness) is 
the easiest feat of the three ; but there is still some 
little art about it, which each is ready to teach his 
neighbor at the shortest notice. But of late years 
there has been a fourth secret confided to the general 
public — namely, the art of selling books, of which, as 
is proved every day in letters to the newspapers, no 
one is half so ignorant as the booksellers. The pro- 
fessors of other callings are generally supposed to know 
their own trade : bankers, brewers, and butchers are 
allowed to carry on their own business without dicta- 
tion — I should like to see one of the outside public 
telling my butcher not only how to cut a joint, but 
what to charge for it ! — but booksellers, it now appears, 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 17 

are idiots and need instruction. The golden (or, at 
least, the silver) rule of selling books is, we are told, 
never to charge more than a shilling apiece for them. 
People will then buy and not borrow. An enormous 
circulation will at once attend all books, and authors 
will become millionaires. At present, publishers and 
authors combine in issuing books at prices which 
"everybody " writes to say are "practically prohibi- 
tory." They use the word " practically " to be ready 
for any antagonist who proves them to be a little astra}' 
in their statement of facts. A year or two ago the 
price fixed by these teachers of the Trade was sixpence ; 
but as the effect of that system was to leave tons of 
unsold literature on every counter, and to ruin half the 
small country booksellers, the figure was good-natured- 
ly raised to a shilling. If 60,000 copies of a book are 
sold at that price, and the author receives even a penny 
of it, he gets <£250. But, what may also happen, he 
may only sell 600 copies, and in that case he gets but 
£2 10s. There is no harm, of course, in being sanguine 
on somebody else's account, but I am not aware that it 
does him much good. 

Another point on which these gentry are very posi- 
tive is the comparative cheapness of books upon the 
Continent — by which they mean the c scrofulous 
French novels,' which fall to pieces, as it were, of 
their own rottenness, in your hand. It is true that 
the Tauchnitz series is both comely and convenient ; 
but as compared with our ' cheap editions ' of the same 
books — which have at least a binding, if not an 
•aesthetic one — they are the more costly and less last- 
ing. Finally, there is a great fuss made about the 
edition that goes to the circulating library, and which 



18 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

in nine cases out of ten is the only one that remuner- 
ates the author. Some one is injured, it seems, by not 
being able to buy the three-volume work for a shilling 
the day it comes out. Now, I know something of this 
question, and am in a position to calm the public mind 
upon it. Not even in the case of the most popular 
novelist is it necessary to form a queue at Messrs. 
Mudie's door when his book appears. People wait for 
it with a patience which is much more commendable 
than complimentary ; and as for the man in the street 
who subscribes to no library, whether he gets it to- 
morrow or six months hence does not signify to him 
the twelfth part of the sum he wants to have it sold at 
— namely, one penny piece. 



That last 'resource of civilization,' Mr. Berry, the 
hangman, has been narrating some experiences of his 
life, presumably for publication, the appearance of so 
many memoirs of other distinguished personages having 
doubtless fired his emulation. So far as can be judged 
of them by mere report, his reminiscences are not so 
agreeable as those of Mr. Frith, so interesting as those 
of Mr. Adolphus Trollope, nor so informing as those 
of Dr. Darwin. How is it, I wonder, that persons 
with such exceptional opportunities for the study of 
human nature under its most dramatic aspect, as heads- 
men and hangmen, have so little to tell us ? The 
memoirs of even Sanson, whose family for seven gen- 
erations were the public executioners of Paris, and 
who himself sheared the heads off half the French 
aristocracy, are not very exciting reading. The fact 
is, your dull man, with every advantage in the way of 
incident, can only tell his story in a dull way ; while 



NOTES FROM THE <NEWS: 19 

the true raconteur, like a good cook, can make some- 
thing attractive out of the poorest materials. Nine 
professional men out of ten, in narrating their experi- 
ences, will dwell upon some detail that has no attrac- 
tion for their hearers, and omit the salient point 
which the born story-teller will seize upon on the 
instant. 

Mr. Berry appears to fall into the common error of 
those who write autobiographies, of being too diffuse 
about his relatives : as the post of hereditary execu- 
tioner does not belong to his family, these individuals 
we don't care twopence about. We want to hear the 
last words of the Eminent Persons who have come 
under his observation, not his own private reflections 
upon the isolation of his position. His character 
seems to be less cheerful than that of Mr. Dennis, as 
drawn by the historian of the Gordon Riots, and he is 
given to bewail rather than to magnify his office. I 
once asked a well-known prison official who had seen 
many more men hung than Mr. Berry has operated 
upon, whether any criminal that had ever come under 
his observation had shown an entire absence of fear. 

1 Not one,' was his reply ; ; many a man " dies game," 
and with a smile on his face till the white cap hides it ; 
but to those who know where to look for it, the signs 
of extreme mental distress are never absent ; they are 
seen in the workings of the muscles of the back while 
the man is being pinioned, and no effort of self-restraint 
can hide them.' 



A prize-fighter recently deceased had his coffin 
covered with wreaths, or, as my brother paragraphists 
phrase it, 'adorned with the emblems of Flora.' Is it 
possible they meant to write ' Floorer ' ? 



20 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS? 

In a volume before me, published seventy years ago, 
I find a lament that the old social custom of keeping 
Christmas in England is ' rapidly going out.' Since 
then, thanks to the genial influence of Charles Dickens, 
it had a revival ; but now there is little doubt it is on 
the wane again. I make no account of the cynical 
persons who set their faces against public jollity of all 
kinds, and denounce, because they interfere with their 
own smooth round of selfish pleasures, even Bank Hol- 
idays as a nuisance , but there is certainly a growing 
dislike to ' keeping Christmas' as it used to be kept. 
In town, this is largely owing to the clubs, the influence 
of which is strongly against family gatherings ; the 
fact, too, that the means of locomotion now admit of 
relatives assembling together at least as often as they 
wish to do, is, as old Burton says, ' a cause' ; and those 
excellent persons, the water-drinkers, have also had 
something to 'do with it. I have not a word to say 
against them ; but gingerade is really not the liquor 
with which roast beef and plum-pudding ought to be 
associated, nor could one partake of it with impunity 
(I should think) out of a wassail-bowl. The vigor of 
enjoyment with which Christmas used to be welcomed 
is certainly gone. To read about it, as it was known 
to our fathers — much more our grandfathers — is like 
glancing at a page of manners and customs in a book 
of travel : 

Christmas comes, he comes, he comes, 
Ushered with a rain of plums. 
Hollies in the windows greet him; 
Schools come driving post to meet him. 

Thank goodness, they don't now do anything of the 
kind, and we find the boys' railway fares quite expen- 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 21 

sive enough as it is ! How we kept Christmas even 
so recently as forty years ago will seem strange to 
many of my readers, and the charming poem which 
describes it is probably unknown to almost all of them : 

O plethora of beef and bliss ! 
Monkish feaster, sly of kiss ! 
Southern soul in body Dutch ! 
Glorious time of great Too-Much ! 
Too much heat and too much noise, 
Too much babblement of boys ; 
Too much eating, too much drinking, 
Too much ev'rything but thinking; 
Solely bent to laugh and stuff, 
And trample upon base Enough. 
Oh, right is thy instinctive praise 
Of the wealth of Nature's ways ! 
Right thy most unthrifty glee, 
And pious thy mince-piety ! 

Much of this ' festivity to order ' has been waved away 
from us by the wand of that malignant fairy Dyspep- 
sia ; and what is left is, to us of the town, the worst 
of it — namely, the Christmas Waits. In the country, 
the players and singers are known — there is a charm- 
ing description of them in Mr. Hardy's ' Under the 
Greenwood Tree ' — but in London every vagabond 
who can boast of the possession of a cracked clarionet 
thinks he is authorized to wake us at two in the morn- 
ing throughout the month of December. The reason 
given by the Irish peasant why a certain obnoxious 
landlord was permitted to live so long, * Well, what is 
everybody's business, you see, your honor, is nobody's 
business,' can alone explain the tolerance we extend 
to them. 



22 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

Some gentleman who signs himself a ' millionaire ' 
has been protesting against the sums made by popular 
authors, which is as much as though some feudal lord of 
France should have grudged the one nettle out of four 
with which the poor peasant was allowed to make his 
soup. Of course it may be only i the millionaire's ' fun, 
but it is very mischievous fun. There is a popular 
belief that literary persons, and especially writers of 
fiction, are in receipt of large incomes ; instead of which 
they are paid poorly, use up their wits more quickly 
than other brain-workers, and have no retiring allow- 
ance. Except Walter Scott, no English author ever 
made a fortune out of his books. Charles Dickens, the 
most popular writer in England, and, perhaps, in the 
world, would have left little behind him but for the 
profits that accrued from his lectures. Thackeray did 
not die rich. Trollope tells us he made £ 70,000 by 
his pen, which, spread over a whole writing life, was 
less than .£2,000 a year. What lawyer, what physician, 
what commercial man, occupying the same position in 
his own calling that Trollope occupied in his, has not 
made twice and thrice that income? None of these 
three authors, though all three were generous and open- 
Uandecl-^-as, to do them justice, most men of letters are 
--can be accused of extravagance. They had to live 
on what they made, and could save but little out of it. 
What other three contemporaries have given so much 
pleasure— smoothed the pillow of the sick, and soothed 
their pain; gladdened the schoolboy; given relaxation 
to the toiler ; and, upon the whole, sown so many seeds 
of good amongst their fellow-men as these three ? And 
yet, forsooth, there are found people to grudge them the 
pecuniary gains which any fluent lawyer, or fashionable 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 23 

physician, whose place can be supplied to-morrow by 
five hundred like him, would despise as paltry. 



A little book, the subject of which must needs have 
an interest — some day — for every one of us, has lately 
been published, entitled ' Euthanasia.' It is a medical 
book, and mainly concerns itself with the proper treat- 
ment of the dying ; but, independently of its professional 
advice, it gives much noteworthy and sound infor- 
mation which will be generally welcome. In the first 
place it explodes the popular, though very disagreeable 
belief that the act of death is always, or even usually, 
a painful one. The vulgar phrases 'mortal agony,' 
4 last struggle,' and their congeners, are proved to have 
little foundation, save in the morbid love of sensation 
which human nature is so prone. The great anatomist, 
William Hunter, knowing how much mischief ignorant 
fear engenders, bore his own dying testimony to this 
effect: ' If I had strength enough to hold a pen,' he 
whispered to his friend, Dr. Combe, 4 1 would write 
how easy and pleasant it is to die.' Sir Henry Halford, 
Sir Benjamin Brodie, and the distinguished surgeon 
Mr. Savory, have expressed the same cheering opinion. 
It is to the nurses of the old school — for to ignorant 
natures horrors are always welcome — that we are in- 
debted, probably, for our apprehensions of the mere act 
of death. The trained attendants of the sick, who now, 
most fortunately, have taken their place, have no such 
tales to tell. There are, of course, exceptions ; but, as 
a rule, the urgent symptoms of disease subside before 
the last scene in our earthly pilgrimage. ' A pause in 
nature, as it were, seems to take place, the frame is 
fatigued by its efforts to sustain itself, and a general 
tranquillity pervades the whole system/ 



24 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

Even in death by drowning, where the mind is keenly 
alive and active throughout, there is an entire absence 
of suffering of any kind. The famous letter of Admiral 
Beaufort, describing his symptoms when more nearly 
drowned than probably any living man has ever been, is 
quoted from Sir John Barrow's memoir. 4 I no longer 
thought of being rescued,' he writes ; « nor was I in any 
bodily pain. On the contrary, my sensations were now 
of rather a pleasurable sort, partaking of that dull but 
contented sort of feeling which precedes the sleep pro- 
duced by fatigue.' It is on this letter, though there is 
much evidence of the same kind, that the popular idea 
is based that drowning persons, within a minute or two, 
seem to have presented to them every incident of 
their lives. ' The whole period of my existence,' says 
the Admiral, 4 seemed to be placed before me in pano- 
ramic review, and each act of it accompanied by a con- 
sciousness'of right and wrong, or by some reflection on 
its cause or its consequences ' ; though two minutes did 
not elapse between the moment of suffocation to his 
being hauled up, and, according to the lookers-on, he 
was very quickly restored to animation. On the other 
hand, I have myself known half-drowned men, who tell 
me they have had no consciousness of anything save 
the agony of being restored to life. 



A subject that is also very properly dwelt upon in 
this little book is the proper course that should be 
adopted as to making the patient acquainted with his 
hopeless condition. i I forbear to step out of my 
province,' says Sir Henry Halford, 'to offer airy advice 
which is not necessary to promote his cure. At the same 
time, I think it indispensable to let his friends know 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 25 

the danger of his case the instant I discover it. He 
goes on to show that it is much better that they should 
undertake this task than the medical adviser. ' They 
do so without destroying his hopes, for the patient will 
still believe that he has an appeal to his physician 
beyond their fears; whereas, if the physician lay open 
his danger to him, however delicately, he runs a risk of 
appearing to pronounce a sentence of death.' Among 
smaller errors our author very justly inveighs against 
is the common practice of whispering and going on tip- 
toe indulged in by visitors to a sick-room. As Dickens, 
with humorous exaggeration, tells us, this is really 
* more calculated to disturb the nerves of an invalid 
than the entry of a horse-soldier at full gallop.' 



Years ago, it was said by a Frenchman of us Eng- 
lish that we had a hundred religions but only one 
sauce (melted butter.) Our sauces, I suppose, have 
increased ; but certainly not to such an extent as our 
religious sects. The list of those whose places of 
meeting are registered for religious worship now ex- 
tends to one hundred and sixty. Some of them are 
very curious. The longest title belongs to the ' Be- 
lievers in the Divine Visitation of Joanna Southcote, 
Prophetess of Exeter.' The shortest is 4 Saints,' with- 
out a definite article. Many of them are, as might 
have been expected, positive enough ; but one is nega- 
tive, 4 Christians, who object to be otherwise desig- 
nated.' I thought I had found the queerest — as well as 
beyond question the most exclusive — in the ' Hackney 
Juvenile Miss ' ; the idea of a young lady having an 
entire sect to herself naturally charmed me ; but I am 
told 4 Miss' is short for 'Mission,' The ' Glazebrook 



26 NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 

Army,' though doubtless a host in itself, gives me no 
definite idea of its tenets ; and I am equally at sea as 
regards the ' Ingham ites ' and 4 Glassites.' The 4 Re- 
creative Religionists,' on the other hand, seems to give 
promise of a cheerful community; but the terms of 
subscription are not mentioned, and in such a pleasure- 
seeking sect they would probably be beyond my humble 
means. 



If contradiction can affect the departed as it affects 
the living, the gentleman who used to express his 
belief that ' there never was such a thing as a centena- 
rian ' must be suffering under great irritation. Not a 
week now goes by without an account in the news- 
papers of someone of a hundred years old, with all his 
faculties about him, and much more addicted to out- 
door exercise than the present writer. Our patriarchs, 
indeed, are not now generally satisfied with being only 
a hundred. The last week's candidate for honors in 
longevity is a lady of 103. She is only ' slightly deaf,' 
gets up at seven o'clock to ; black-lead her grates,' and 
talks of i running back to fetch things.' Of course, the 
Americans have not been able to stand this ; there 
are, as is well known, taller, shorter, fatter, thinner, 
younger, older, and in all respects more remarkable 
people in that country than elsewhere in all creation, 
and they have hastened to inform us that our lady 
patriarch is nowhere in comparison with ' our Mr. 
Hicks,' of Texas, who has seen not less than 117 sum* 
mers, and confidently expects to see at least five and 
twenty more. He is a little bent, but the right way ; 
and he and his wife — by no means his first wife, but a 
young thing of ninety years — harvested this year eight 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 27 

bales of cotton between them. Though himself ' col- 
ored ' — he was sold as a slave in 1850, and, being 
eighty, sold cheap — we are assured this is not the case 
with the above extracts from his biography. 



Honesty, as Charles Lamb tells us, must stop some- 
where. With him the limit was sucking-pig. With 
most people it is horseflesh, or orders for the theatre. 
Even if a clergyman sells one a horse, it is just as well 
to have a veterinary surgeon's opinion as to its merits 
as well as his own ; and even a man who is not natur- 
ally greedy will exhibit the most unwholesome appetite 
in his applications for tickets for the play. I wonder 
that the good people who object to dramatic entertain- 
ments have never instanced this as another proof of 
their demoralizing effect. The richest people — million- 
aires — will importune managers of theatres for gratui- 
tous boxes and stalls. This happens in no other call- 
ing. It is true that some unspeakable ass will some- 
times ask a popular novelist for a story gratis : ' I don't 
ask for money, but just for a little story ' — as though 
he should say: C I don't ask for five <£5 notes, but 
only for a check for £25.' But it is not often done. 
The theatrical manager is similarly pestered every 
day, and by all sorts and conditions of men. Yet 
the applicants would doubtless resent being classed 
with the race they really belong to — the begging- 
letter impostors. I hope that the late representa- 
tions of the poor managers to the Home Office will 
relieve them in future from at least all official exactions, 
and that, when they have a good box to spare, they will 
remember those who took their part in the controversy. 



28 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

What a feast for the satirist is provided in the fuss 
that is being made in Vienna about ennobling a 
Rothschild, or, more literally, making him 4 fit for a 
Court !' The difference between the insect on the leaf 
— especially if the leaf belongs to the Emperor's dinner- 
table — and the insect in the dust seems greater in 
Austria than anywhere. It is curious enough that in 
military nations (which one would suppose would be 
scornful of such shadowy distinctions) the question 
of precedence has always assumed great importance. 
Even Germany, where certainly there is no lack of 
intelligence, grovels at the feet of hereditary etiquette 
in a way that can only be explained by a total absence 
of humor. The works of Lord Macaulay are trans- 
lated in that country, wherein it may be read that 
heraldry is c a system of arbitrary canons originating 
in pure caprice,' and that ' a lion rampant, with a folio 
in its paw,, with a man standing on each side of him, 
with a telescope over his head, and a motto under his 
feet, must be either very mysterious or very absurd ;' 
but all that will go for nothing with the Teuton of 
ambition, who would hardly mind being hung and 
drawn if he was certain of being afterwards * quar- 
tered.' 



In Turkey, dissensions about precedence between 
lawyers and soldiers grew, of old, to such a height 
that the Sultan, l to produce unanimity,' enacted that 
henceforth the left hand (by which, I suppose, was 
meant the sitting upon it) should be deemed most 
honorable for soldiers, and the right for lawyers. 
4 Thus,' observes the simple chronicler, 4 each thinks 
himself in the place of honor.' The circumstance, 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 29 

however, though very characteristic, escapes him that 
it was the lawyers who got the upper hand — which is, 
of course, the right one. 

In Russia the prerogatives of birth were carried to 
such an extent in the seventeenth century that the 
army was demoralized by it. Nobody whose father or 
even grandfather had held any command over the 
ancestor of another would stoop to be his subordinate. 
Under these circumstances, Fedor III. directed all his 
nobles to appear before him bringing with them their 
genealogies and family documents, most of which had 
probably a ' mark ' below them instead of a sign- 
manual. ' My Lords,' he observed, ' I mean to put 
an end — at all events, for the present — to all these 
inconveniences arising from the comparative greatness 
of your forefathers, which so interferes with the 
public service. From henceforth ' — and here he caused 
all the genealogies to be thrown into the fire — ' you 
start fair.' 

The English, notwithstanding the proverbial pride 
of our nobility, have never made themselves ridiculous 
about these matters. 'You may put me anywhere,' 
said one bluff old Duke to his hostess, 'except in a 
draught.' Lady Walpole mentions that on the occasion 
of her inviting a very distinguished company to her 
house, to meet the great Italian singers Cuzzoni and 
Faustini, her only difficulty about precedence arose 
from the jealousy of the two professionals. The 
differences between Tweedledum and Tweedledee could 
only be got over by inducing Faustini to follow her 
into a remote part of the house to admire some old 



30 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

china, while Cuzzoni sang under the idea that her 
rival had left the field. After which Cuzzoni, with 
the same happy results, was shown the china. 

The Austrian Government seems to have hit upon 
a really good plan for the discouragement of drunken- 
ness — if (a large ' if,' however) it can only be carried 
into effect. After a man has been convicted of this 
offence three times, no publican, under penalties, may 
supply him for the rest of the year with liquor. In 
country places, where the man is known, this may 
work well ; but in towns he will have only to go out 
of his own neighborhood for his daily poison. It 
should be enacted, in addition, that the drunkard 
should wear a badge ; in Vienna, where armorial 
bearings are thought so much of, this might easily be 
done without wounding his feelings : let the heralds 
invent a cognizance for 4 three sheets in the wind.' 
This class of offender is often very judgmatical in 
the choice of his times for 'breaking out.' If he is to 
have but three chances per annum, he will probably 
choose New Year's Day, Midsummer Day, and New 
Year's Eve ; he will thereby keep within the law, 
and secure the maximum of enjoyment — forty-eight 
hours of intoxication. Some people are very easily 
excited by liquor. A cook, accused of drunkenness 
the other day, protested she had had nothing but a 
mince-pie ; there must have been a good deal of brandy 
in the mince-meat. A footman went even further, 
and, with many hiccups, affirmed in the dock that he 
had had nothing but a biscuit ; this must have been a 
wine-biscuit. 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 31 

The President of the French Republic, it is cynically 
said, is bidding for the female vote because he has 
officially recognized the obligations which the State is 
under to those excellent ladies who follow the example 
of our own Miss Nightingale, in dedicating their lives 
to the sick poor. It is a pity that the admirable woman 
who founded the Bon Marche*, and made her wealth 
the means of so much good to her fellow-countrymen, 
did not live to see M. Carnot's accession to power, 
since he would certainly have gratified her ambition to 
wear the cross of the Legion of Honor. How strange 
it is that even in the foremost of their sex this passion 
for " decoration " — and ribbons — should be as strong 
as in the feeblest ! When on the noble breast of Mdlle. 
Nicolle, who has humanized the idiot, tended the sick, 
and devoted her whole life to similar good works, the 
President pinned the rosette, which signifies knight- 
hood, we are told "she fainted with emotion." She 
had been a night nurse for six-and-thirty years, but 
the spelling it with a K made all the difference. 



Among the many things which ' no fellow can under- 
stand,' who is not himself an expert in the art, perhaps 
that of ' blindfold chess ' is the most inexplicable. 
To play chess at all is difficult to some people, and 
unless I have a Queen given me (some 'give a pawn,' I 
see, and doubtless think it liberality), I can never 
make much of a fight of it myself ; but to play without 
seeing the board at all, throws, to my mind, the sister 
arts of making bricks without straw, or cucumbers 
out of sunbeams, quite into the shade. Yet most good 
chessplayers can do it. ' I can only play two games 
without seeing the board,' said a friend to me, the 



32 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 

other day, modestly. 4 Two is a very small number,' I 
replied, with the air of a man who plays chess as well 
as he does everything else , and he admitted it with a 
sigh. But a star has now arisen in the checkered 
firmament who plays thirty-seven games blindfold, and 
only loses two of them ! Chess is certainly a science 
which has made immense progress. The origin of the 
game is lost in the mists of antiquity, and yet so late 
as 1266 a great fuss was made about one Buzecca, a 
Saracen, at Florence, because he could play ' at one 
time on three chess-boards with the most skilful 
masters, two by the memory and the third by sight.' 
Every chess club in London has now at least one 
Buzecca. Morphy played sixteen games at a time. 
On one occasion a friend of mine, an amateur, was 
sitting by one of the antagonists. After the latter had 
made a certain move, my friend said, 4 If I had been 
you, I should have played the Bishop.' In due time — 
i.e., after some hours — the player made another move. 
4 You can't do that,' cried Morphy, from the inner room, 
4 it puts your King in check.' 4 No, it doesn't,' said the 
player ; but he was wrong. My friend had moved the 
Bishop to illustrate his argument and forgotten to put 
it back again. The seeing man sat corrected by the 
blind one. 



Chess is full of historical associations. Al Amin, 
the great Khalif of Bagdad, was so fond of it that when 
told that his city was being carried by assault he cried, 
'Let me alone, for I see checkmate against Kuthar.' 
Charles I. continued his game when the news was 
brought to him that the Scotch were going to sell him 
to England. John Frederic, Elector of Saxony, did 



NOTES EttOM TBE 'NEWS: 33 

the like with his fellow-prisoner, the Elector of Bruns- 
wick, when informed that sentence of death had been 
passed on him. Chessplayers seem, as a rule, to be 
cool people. On the other hand, Fernand, Count of 
Flanders, and his wife used to quarrel over chess so 
violently, 4 that it engendered a mutual hatred between 
them,' and when he was taken prisoner she remembered 
his behavior at the unsocial board and took no steps 
to release him. Don John of Austria and the Duke of 
Weimar were so devoted to the game that each had a 
room in his palace with a pavement of black and white 
marble, where living men, in fancy costumes, went 
through the moves at the word of command. I should 
like to have seen the Knights move. Though the game 
of chess has been associated with so much that is inter- 
esting there is nothing, perhaps, connected with it 
more admirable than the metaphor for poor humanity 
it suggested to Omar Khayyam : 

We are no other than a moving row 

But helpless pieces of the game He plays 
Upon His checker-board of nights and days ; 
Hither and thither moves and checks and slays, 
And one by one back in the Closet lays. 



From the most taciturn of civilized nations we are 
rapidly becoming the most loquacious, and have been 
reproved for it by a Minister from the United States. 
Dispraise from Sir Hubert Stanley is dispraise indeed. 
'There is a great deal too much platform oratory 
amongst us,' he says ; and he ought to know. I suppose 
it comes from the immense increase of debating socie- 
ties, which teach the young idea how to shoot with the 

3 



34 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

long bow. But prolixity has always been the bane of 
our House of Commons. An English King, who had 
his lucid intervals, once observed : 'The rage for public 
speaking, and the extravagant length to which our pop- 
ular orators carry their harangues in Parliament, is very 
detrimental to the national business. I onty hope it 
may not prove injurious to the public weal.' It is now 
proposed that twenty minutes should be the limit to all 
Parliamentary speeches, with certain necessary excep- 
tions. If a man cannot express his ideas in twenty 
minutes, he must, indeed, be very full of ideas : but some 
people talk for talking's sake. Would it be irreverent 
— if it is a breach of privilege involving fine or imprison- 
ment, I withdraw the suggestion — to propose that every 
hon. member while on his legs, should smoke ? In Scot- 
land, Sir Walter tells us that 'abune the pass' it used 
to be permitted (at all events, for ' the factor ') to smoke 
in church.' My experience of smokers is that they only 
speak when they have really something to say, and don't 
speak long because they have not much breath to spare. 
The end of his cigar would be a reasonable amit of time 
for the Parliamentary orator. If he was very popular 
he might be allowed a second. The Scotch divines, 
who preached by the hour-glass, used to say (doubtless 
to the terror of their congregation) : ' And now, my be- 
loved brethren, we will take another glass.' But it 
would be a different thing, and very complimentary, if 
the proposal came from the audience : i Hear, hear ! 
Take another cigar.' 



Mr. Goschen tells us as a curious psychological fact 
that no 4 conscience money' for income tax has ever been 
paid by a woman. It may be replied, of course, that 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 35 

women are so honest that they never need to pay ' con- 
science money ;' but I am afraid this is not the case. It 
is quite true that women as a rule are less scrupulous 
about money matters than men ; they think nothing 
of robbing a railway company ( by representing their 
children as under age), or of smuggling Tauchnitz edi- 
tions through the Custom House. The cabmen, too, 
complain of them. ' A shilling ! It's always a shilling ! 
I believe as you women think you can go to heaven for 
a shilling ! ' is a remark I once heard made by a Jehu to 
his female fare. But there is, if we males would confess 
the truth, no little cause for this 'parsimony' of the 
weaker sex. Many a man, who objects to be called a 
'scaly varmint' by the driver of his hansom, keeps his 
spouse so short of money that she really has not an extra 
sixpence to give the man. He is lavish to hotel wait- 
ers, to railway porters, and the commissionaire of his 
club to secure their good opinion and his own comfort ; 
but he grudges the wife of his bosom half-a-crown for 
miscellaneous expenses, and grumbles at the least excess 
in her weekly bills. She looks at a shilling twice be- 
fore she parts with it — poor thing ! because she has such 
few shillings ; and what is a very bitter reflection to her 
is the knowledge that her husband (unless he is an 
actual miser) never shows this side of his character to 
other women. 

'Musrc, poetry, and the fine arts ' are generally (so 
to speak) lumped together, like reading, writing, and 
arithmetic ; but the goings on of those who cultivate 
these gifts professionally are very different. Did poet 
or painter, for example, ever have a 'chirruper' in 
their employment? The players and singers in music- 



36 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

halls cannot, it seems, do without him. It is his genial 
office, when the gentleman in faultless evening at- 
tire leads the lady, who holds the music, with no 
superfluous modesty, before her song-filled bosom, on 
to the stage, to inaugurate the applause. The amount 
of it he judiciously regulates by the sum paid for his 
services ; on some occasions the quotation falls so low 
as twopence, but it is always supplemented by a 
glass of hot brandy -and- water gratis, which doubtless 
stimulates his exertions. One can scarcely, how- 
ever, expect 4 a hurricane of applause ' for twopence. 
The Great Jenkins in his ' Inimitable Masher Melod}',' 
without doubt, gives silver for this encouragement; 
but even if it be gold, what a pleasant and convenient 
arrangement it must be ! There is something cheerful 
and natural, 4 the true bird note,' in the very name of 
the chirruper. Is it impossible to introduce him 
to literature ? He would be a great improvement on 
the clumsy device of log-rolling; which is also (as I 
am informed ) dearer. It is always risky to change 
one's profession late in life ; and, alas ! I have neither 
voice nor ear ; but to be a popular music-hall singer, 
with his brougham and his chirruper, must be a most 
' golluptious ' life. 

Tailors, even in Paris, do not lead male society 
to the extent that dressmakers lead the ladies ; but 
they are powerful, and it is understood that with the 
assistance of certain gentlemen of fashion, who are 
deeply in their books, they are about to effect a 
reform in evening dress. Instead of that waiters' 
costume we now all wear, and which leads to such 
painful misapprehensions ( ' I tell ye, ye are the but- 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 37 

tier, ye big man. Go get me some more champagne, 
etc.'), we are henceforth to wear colored velvet and 
lace. I don't care about the lace, which will hitch in 
things, but I welcome the velvet. Next to taking off 
one's hat at funerals, I am persuaded that nothing 
gives one cold so much as the habit of exchanging 
one's winter morning clothes for the superfine cloth of 
the evening. Of course, there are mitigations, to 
which delicacy forbids me to further allude ; but even 
when you have got them all on you are not so warm 
as you were. I even know some agreeable persons, 
but of delicate constitutions, who resolutely decline 
to wear evening clothes in winter, and thereby deprive 
the ladies of their delightful society altogether ; but 
in peach-colored velvet one would be able to go any- 
where. On the other hand, the practice of walking 
home on fine nights will have to be discontinued; 
however much we may rejoice in our costly attire, it 
would be a degrading end indeed to be murdered for 
one's clothes. 



If there is one profession above another that is 
justly entitled to the epithet 4 liberal,' it is the medical 
calling. There is, indeed, none to be compared with 
it for consideration and generosity ; and if, as some 
say, it makes its rich patients pay for its poor ones, I 
honor it all the move. When ' the accounts ' in the 
Book of the Recording Angel come to be balanced, 
it is my belief that those of the medical practitioner 
will, in most cases, be found entered in letters of gold, 
but which have nothing to do with guinea fees. 
Whenever I see a doctor's bill ' disputed ' I am always 
for the doctor. Of course there are exceptions. A» 



38 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 



case tried by Mr. Justice Stephen the other day did 
not, however, in the jury's opinion, come under that 
category , but it had the effect (which the doctor 
could never have professionally foreseen) of putting 
the Court 'into convulsions.' The patient was being 
'treated' — though not in the sense of a gratuitous 
entertainment — in the doctor's own house. He 
charged for 4 visits ' which necessarily did not entail 
long journeys. 4 When you had nothing to do, ' 
said the merciless counsel opposed to him, 4 1 suppose 
you walked upstairs and earned half a guinea — you 
seem to have been in and out like a rabbit; you did 
not charge, I conclude, for mileage ? I see sometimes 
you charged two guineas — what was that for ? ' To 
which the doctor (most reasonably, in my opinion) 
replied : ' Because I was called out of my bed.' If 
anyone called me out of my bed, I should want a great 
deal more than that. A book of charges authorized by 
k The Medical Association ' was put in Court, and the 
Judge most frankly observed upon it : 4 Just imagine 
anyone publishing a book of authorized charges of our 
profession ! ' I have some imagination myself, but I 
can't imagine it. 

There is a pretty story about a medical overcharge 
which I am glad, for the plaintiff's sake, that wicked 
advocate did not quote. The Rector of a small country 
parish had the misfortune to break his leg ; it was a 
case that the village surgeon would have managed 
easily, but the Rector's wife was nervous, and tele- 
graphed for Sir Parker Peps from town at once. He 
came, he saw — though, of course, he did not saw the 
leg — he set it. The lady's brother, who undertook to 



t 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 39 

make the pecuniary arrangements, inquired what was 
the amount of the fee. ' A hundred guineas,' replied 
Sir Parker airily. ' Good heavens ! my brother-in-law's 
living is only X150 a year ! Could you not make some 
deduction?' 'Hum, ha! The circumstances being 
such as you describe, let us say pounds instead of 
guineas.' 



Abbots ford, I read, is to let. At first sight noth- 
ing seems more attractive to all classes of hero-worship- 
pers than to dwell in the same residence which has 
been consecrated by the presence of their idol. It 
almost appears to them that the atmosphere of his 
genius must still surround it, and that the incoming 
tenant will wear at least the shadow of his halo. 
Exactly the contrary of this is what, however, generally 
takes place. Even a person of some importance in 
his own line loses it by the contrast with the other's 
greatness, just as a graceful but diminutive figure is 
lost in the clothes of one of larger stature. How dread- 
ful it would be for a small novelist, even if he had the 
necessary means, to live at Abbotsford ! It would be 
essential to the tenant of such a place to have no 
similarity of renown at all. In any case, it would be 
useless for him to plant a tree or build a bower, or per- 
form any action dear to a proprietor in the hope of 
future recognition, for everything would be reckoned 
from Sir Walter's time. On the other hand, no true 
sportsman need feel out of his element at Abbotsford, 
and might hold himself the equal of his great pre- 
decessor as regards, at least, one side of his character ; 
the 1 'Cality, moreover, is too distant from the great 
centres of population to be much harried by pilgrims. 



40 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

Where a literary shrine is easy of access, the case of 
the new lessee is sad indeed. He is, of course, despised 
by his neighbors, who are always comparing him with 
his predecessor as a widow throws her first husband 
with his title at her second who has none ; but for that 
when he took the place, he was probably prepared. 
What much more annoys him is the way in which his 
existence is ignored by the passing stranger. Visitors 
drive up to his gate every summer day, flatten their 
noses against his windows, sit the bottom out of 
his garden-chairs, and cross-examine his domestics 
about the habits of the great man departed, as though 
no one was reigning in his stead. Without sharing 
any of the other's popularity, he is deprived of his own 
privacy. I once knew a passionate admirer of a de- 
ceased poet, who purchased his house in the country 
from mere sentiment, at a fancy price, and was so per- 
secuted in consequence that he quite altered his views 
of that bard's immortal works. From welcoming his 
brother-worshippers to the shrine with open arms at all 
times, he got by degrees to limit their visits to three 
days a week, and eventually to charge them sixpence 
a head for admission. His successor, who made no 
pretence of admiration for genius, and took the house 
because he liked it, now keeps it — thanks to a bull-dog 
and the garden-engine — quite snug and private. 



The editor of the Nineteenth Century has been 
judicious in admitting into his columns the paper ' How 
to live on <£700 a year.' It is a question that a good 
many people could answer very easily ; but not the 
class who can afford to purchase a half-crown review — 
the subscription to which, by-the-bye, the author of the 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 41 

article has rather ungratefully left out of his list of 
4 necessary expenses.' We have had endless recipes for 
living on next to nothing ; but the unfortunate young 
men who find it impossible to marry under a thousand 
a year have had until now no guide, philosopher, 
and friend to show them how to do it. It is clear 
enough that it is they, and not the young ladies, who 
are afraid to face what, in comparison to the mode of 
life to which they have been accustomed, is genteel 
poverty. Whatever Edwin — snug in his club — may 
sigh about his disinclination to transfer dearest Angelina 
from Mayfair to Kensington, and deprive her of her 
carriage and her stall at the opera, we know very well 
that what he is really thinking of is how he shall get 
on without his pint of champagne at dinner and his 
sevenpenny cigar afterwards ; and the gentleman who 
has taken it in hand to bring about these marriages 
thoroughly understands this. 



I have submitted his calculations to one of the best 
lady household-managers in London, and the smile 
with which that female searcher pointed out to me the 
drift of his figures was very significant. She admits 
indeed that — for a man — they are extremely creditable ; 
he shows far more knowledge of housekeeping than 
most male creatures ; but the way in which he leans 
towards the husband is (save for the good object he has 
in view) simply abominable. Out of <£700 a year, she 
says, more than £150 ought surely to be given to 
Angelina to keep house with. The estimate of the 
greengrocer's account (£10 6s.) is extremely small ; 
and if the fish is got at the poulterer's as well as the 
fowl, £10 3s. 7d. will not go very far in that direction. 



42 NOTES FROM THE NEWS.' 

The dairyman's bill (especially if baby — for one baby 
is allowed to this young couple — takes milk from out- 
side sources) is also much too small. On the other 
hand, ' pleasures, presents, and smoking ' are set down 
at the comparatively large figure of £35 18s. 2d., and 
' travelling and tips' at £43 7s. 5d. Who can doubt in 
whose interest these domestic accounts have been thus 
arranged. As a lure to Edwin the thing is excusable ; 
but I do hope that Angelina, when her love-bird is 
caught and caged, will get something more out of hi in for 
house-keeping. It should certainly not be taken from 
that ' balance' of £50, in which ' charities' (doubtless 
omitted from motives of delicacy) and ' insurance' 
ought to be included. What delights me is the infini- 
tesimal detail of these little accounts ; the ' demnition 
threepence,' as Mr. Mantalini would have termed it, 
that appears in the husband's tailor's bill, and the two- 
pence in ' pleasures, presents, and smoking.' Let us 
hope that sum does not denote a ' present,' for it would 
seem a cheap one even for poor people with only ' £700 
a year.' 



' A mother OF FIVE ' hasbeen protesting against the 
custom of certain School Board masters of giving 'home 
lessons ' to be learnt by her daughters, who afterwards 
appeal to her for educational assistance. ' Mother, is 
this sum right? ' (when she is engaged on quite other 
calculations), or, ' Mother, this parsing drives me mad.' 
I sympathize with this oppressed woman from the bot- 
tom of my heart, and do most earnestly hope that this 
domestic persecution will not extend to persons in a 
higher rank of life. Conceive a young gentleman com- 
ing home from his public school and asking Paterfa- 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 43 

milias to help him with his parsing! If any adult can 
make either head or tail of the Latin c primers ' now in 
(so called) use at our higher educational establishments 
I will give him a box of cigars and a bottle of the best 
brandy. Grammar, lest our youth, I suppose, should 
gorge themselves to repletion with that attractive sub- 
ject, has been rendered of late years absolutely unin- 
telligible. Even a boy, one would hope, would not 
have the brutality to ask the person to whom he owes 
his being questions about grammar. If this inquisition, 
however, is to take place, it doesn't much matter what 
he asks. The word ' home ' will no longer have a 
meaning in our language ; for what does Paterfamilias 
now know, not, indeed, about grammatical primers, but 
even about the tilings that he did know when at school ? 
In nine cases out of ten he knows absolutely nothing 
of them. If he takes up an examination paper which 
has been set for his son of twelve years old, it might 
just as well be Sanscrit, so far as he is concerned. It 
is all very well to say, 'Every schoolboy knows/ and 
apply it in a depreciatory sense ; but, at all events, 
every schoolboy knows a deal more of that examina- 
tion paper than Paterfamilias. Those neat little prop- 
ositions in Euclid, those charming lines from the 
' Seven against Thebes,' those admirable extracts from 
Livy — where the deuce have they, I wonder, gone to? 
(7 haven't got 'em). There are persons of culture, I 
understand, who still take an interest in these matters: 
but generally speaking — say in ninety-nine cases out of a 
hundred — people don't. They are in our system, of 
course — doing us no end of good ; but we are not going 
to be tapped for them by boys who ought to be taking 
them into their systems at first hand from the School- 



44 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 






master. We have borne a good deal from that highly 
cultivated person, but the bubble of high-class education 
does not dazzle us quite so much as it used to do ; 
and lest he ' learned by proof in some wild hour how 
much the Wretched dare,' let him leave us our hearths 
and homes unnamed by the inquiring schoolboy. 



A British historian has just died, the journals inform 
us, full of years, if not of literary honors. Only one 
copy of his book was ever sold by his publisher ; he 
afterwards ' recalled the whole edition ' (which could 
not have given him much trouble), and never spoke of 
that operation in Paternoster Row from that day till 
his death. This seems to me a very pathetic story. 
It is so hard to publish a book which one can get no- 
body to buy — or only one person, which is next to no- 
body. The good gentleman thought his 4 History of 
England ' an excellent one, no doubt ; imagined it 
would throw new lights upon disputed questions, and 
prove Lingard and Macaulay equally wrong. He cal- 
culated upon 2,000 copies at least being sold, and a 
cheap edition of 20,000. How many honest fellows 
have done the same ! There is an ancient story of a 
simple clerip, who came up to the Row with some MS. 
sermons, to be published at his own expense. When 
asked how large an edition he wished to be printed, he 
said : ' Well I suppose every parish in England will 
take at least one copy ; ' and it was agreed that there 
were to be as many copies as parishes. Only ten copies 
of the sermons, however, were sold, and the printer's 
bill was enormous. ' My vanity has ruined me ! ' ex- 
claimed the poor clergyman. 4 Well, it might have 
done so,' said the good publisher, with a kindly smil* 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 45 

(for this is a publisher's story), ' only I ventured to cut 
down your order to one hundred copies, which you see 
has been more than sufficient.' One of the prettiest 
tales I know is that in which the lady of fortune mar- 
ries the gentleman from Grub Street, and makes him a 
happy man by secretly buying his books, of which he 
had otherwise no chance of disposing. But it was a 
dangerous kindness, after all; not to sell your book is 
bad enough, but to believe you have sold it, and then 
to find out that nobody has bought it but your wife, 
must be a much more serious matter. 

The question of after how long an interval an article 
left at one's house without explanation may be con- 
sidered a gift has been lately exercising the judicial 
mind, and has been at last, I am glad to say, decided in 
favor of the recipient. It is monstrous that people 
should leave nice things at one's hall-door without say- 
ing anything about them — which one naturally puts 
down to the delicacy of their minds — and then want 
them back, or expect to be paid for them. Caveat emptor 
says the proverb ; let the man that orders tilings see that 
he gives his own address and not mine ; and, on the 
other hand, if the tradesman is in fault, let him suffer 
for it. Don't punish me merely because I have had the 
things and, perhaps, enjoyed them. Is it not enough 
that I have suffered in my tenderest feelings from be^ 
lieving that some dear friend or another has sent me a 
present, when he hasn't, without worrying me with the 
disgusting details of a pecuniary account ? If an anon} r - 
mous turkey comes to me at Christmas, am I to keep it 
till Easter for fear there should be some mistake in its 
direction ? I confess I prefer to know who is so good 



4f> NOTES FROM THE l NEWSS 

its to send me presents, but I would much rather not 
know than not have them. There are, I fear, unscru- 
pulous persons who like to have a doubt about the 
quarter from which the good wind blows. They write 
to all their acquaintances they think capable of such a 
benevolence, 4 with many apologies if it is not so, but 
they really know no other human being whom it can be, 
and it is so like them,' and thereby one gift often makes 
many. There is one anonymous present, by-the-bye, 
which is simply detestable, and that is a newspaper, 
generally of enormous size, which somebody sends us 
because, as it turns out, 4 lie knows there is something 
in it which will interest us greatly,' but forgets to mark 
the place. We spend hours over the hateful sheet in 
vain ; and a week afterwards learn from him that it con- 
tained some paragraph about himself. That is a gift 
which is a mistake indeed, and ought to be returned to 
the original proprietor in a closed cover — with a brick- 
bat inside it — unpaid. 



The old question has turned up again, in circles so 
called 'charitable,' about the sinfulness or innocence of 
bazaars. Some argue that out of that whirlpool of dissi- 
pation and excess no good thing can come, and that even 
the money thrown up by it for the relief of the widow 
and the orphan is polluted, and ought not to be touched. 
Poor people's opinion is, of course, of no value to an} r - 
body ; or else one would like to know what the widow 
and the orphan themselves have to say about this. I'm 
an orphan myself, and have my views. The last deliv- 
erance upon this matter affirms that charity is no 
longer charity when it is mingled with amusement. 
4 One of the saddest aspects of these exhibitions,' it says, 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWSS 47 

4 is, perhaps, when little children are brought on the 
scene, frequently in varied and fantastic costumes, with 
the object of importuning their elders to purchase. 
They lose their early bloom by contact with such scenes 
as these/ To see little children in fancy dresses beg- 
ging with natural eloquence for money for the poor docs 
not seem to me, I confess, either a sad or demoralizing 
spectacle ; but the rather important point, that money 
is procured by this means for good purposes which 
cannot otherwise be procured, is absolutely ignored by 
these amiable but too cocksure persons. A colonial 
bishop whom tjiey have annexed to their cause goes so 
far as to affirm that the only proper method of getting 
money for charitable purposes is 4 the exercise of self- 
renunciation/ But the point again is, who will open 
their purse-strings for that exhibition ? Is a charitable 
institution only to be supported by persons who enter- 
tain the loftiest ideals? In that case (since the idealist 
has very seldom money to spare) they would be in a 
very bad way. If one was not dealing with obviously 
well-meaning persons, it might fairly be pointed out 
that the advocates of this narrow creed seem much more 
taken up with their, own virtues, and with the effect 
of bazaars upon themselves, than with the good objects 
these institutions have (admittedly) in view. If the 
widow and the orphan are not helped by these good 
folks in their own way, it almost seems that they would 
not have them helped at all. Personally, rather than 
offend these tender consciences (and also for other rea- 
sons), I am quite prepared to withstand the temptation 
of bazaars for the rest of my natural life ; but I think 
some protest ought to be entered against those who, in 
a world of sin and sorrow, select an almost blameless 



48 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

custom, which has well-doing for its raison d'Stre, and 
which, without doubt, does bring help to the poor, 
not otherwise obtainable, for such vehement animad- 
version. 



A lady lion-tamer has come to grief through the 
dilatoriness of a photographer. Her ambition was to be 
taken in her celebrated performance of putting her 
head into the lion's mouth. Unlike most of her sex, 
she cared nothing for her personal appearance in the 
picture ; she literally ' effaced herself ' to give greater 
prominence to the King of Beasts, who, unhappily, 
could not be brought to understand the self-sacrifice 
she was making for him. Not a shadow of blame 
seems to attach to his conduct. He behaved, in fact, 
just as a man does when he is being photographed. 
He yawned — which the lady took advantage of — was 
bored to extremity by the delay of the operator, and, 
at the flash of the magnesium light, arranged his mouth 
for a smile. When the closure took place, he was 
probably not even conscious of any obstruction. I 
cannot see the slightest reason for the public indigna- 
tion against that lion. 

Though nothing succeeds like success, there are 
drawbacks to it. Even an ovation — a thing I should 
dearly like to have myself, but I don't see the least 
prospect of it — has, it seems, its inconveniences. The 
enthusiasm at a provincial opera-house the other night 
was so excessive that nothing would satisfy the occu- 
pants of the gallery short of taking the prima donna's 
horses out of her carriage, and dragging it to her hotel. 
A man who had distinguished himself in many ways 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 7 49 

once told me that there was nothing in life so exciting 
or gratifying to one's self-esteem as the tumult of ap- 
plause which greets successful dramatists upon the 
stage. I can see him now — though I hope he can't see 
me — with his hair flying in all directions, and his knees 
knocking together before the footlights, in answer to 
'a call/ which he was not quite sure, as he confessed 
to me afterwards, was of a favorable character or not. 
His reception was really rapturous ; but even he was 
never drawn home by an audience in his carriage — for 
he had none. If one wasn't in a hurry for one's sup- 
per, I can fancy nothing nicer than this mode of con- 
veyance. Only, in the case of the prima donna, the 
hand-bag which contained the diamonds she had worn 
at the play, and which were known to be very valua- 
ble, was, unhappily, abstracted en route. I have no 
doubt the enthusiasm was genuine ; but, nevertheless, 
there is an alternative. It is possible that those dia- 
monds were at the bottom of it from first to last. 



There has been much correspondence of late 
respecting the deterioration of social manners, yet, 
strangely enough,. the greatest blot of all, the practice 
of arriving late for dinner, has hardly been alluded to. 
There is nothing that illustrates the snobbism of soci- 
ety more than the impunity that attends this offence : 
for it is almost always Croesus who commits it, and it 
is forgiven him because he is Croesus. If the host 
owes him money, of course the reason why he waits 
for him to the inconvenience of all his other guests is 
intelligible ; but every host can't owe him money. If 
he could only hear what is said of him by the males, 
as he enters the room with his shameless wife, half an 

4 



50 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWSS 

hour behind time, but without a word of apology be- 
tween them, I really don't think he would dare do it. 
Lesser lights who arrive a little earlier, but still very 
late, do murmur some platitude about 4 the distances 
being really so great in London ' ; yet they manage to 
get in time for the trains at the railway-stations. The 
defenders of this rudeness say that coming too late is 
better (for them) than coming too early and having to 
drive twice round the square — a significant illustra- 
tion, indeed, of the sort of friendship that must exist 
between them and the dinner-givers. Surely the time 
of even the most fashionable hostess is not so very 
valuable but that she might be in her own drawing- 
room five minutes before her dinner hour to receive 
her guests ? 



Men are not so prone to put up with this slight as 
women ; yet I have known a Benchers' dinner at an Inn 
of Court kept waiting for three-quarters of an hour for 
a one-horse Prince. To do them justice, the real Roy- 
alties are never guilty of this misdemeanor; and I 
should like to see Croesus or the people who ' find the 
distances so great in London' being late for them! 
Even at clubs — where people, as a rule, are not allowed 
to give themselves airs — this practice of coming late 
for dinner is very prevalent. Where hosts are weak 
enough to wait, of course the dinner suffers. One of 
the best club cooks in London used to be so well aware 
of this fact as always to delay 4 dishing up ' for half 
an hour. When remonstrated with for this, he would 
reply, in his broken English, 4 It is better that gentle- 
mens should wait for my dinner than my dinner should 
wait for the gentlemens.' He respected himself and 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 51 

his art; but, unhappily, nobody, and nothing else. 
Once he knocked down a kitchenmaid with the rolling- 
pin ; of course the club could not afford to lose him 
for a trifle of that kind. But presently lie threatened 
to kill the secretary; even then he had his defenders: 
one old gourmand on the committee hinted that sec- 
retaries were more easy to procure than cooks ; another 
said c And if he had killed him, I'll answer for it he 
would have made a very good ragout of him.' But, 
nevertheless, that good cook had to go. 



One smaller breach of good manners, now almost 
extinct, was the habit some men had of bringing their 
crush-hats in to dinner with them. A great poet, a 
great artist, and a literary lord were, I remember, 
among these offenders. The poet always sat on his 
hat; the artist set it carefully under the table, and 
put his feet in it ; the lord, with apparent recklessness 
of what became of it, that well became his rank, threw 
it into the first corner ; but there was always a row 
when he went away and it couldn't be found. I sus- 
pect the origin of the practice was the bringing crush- 
hats in summer-time to ' routs ' — a fine old name and 
very appropriate— so that the owners could slip away 
when they liked, without scrimmaging for their prop- 
erty in the hall ; but to bring them in to dinner is surely 
a custom worthy of Colney Hatch. 



The Times correspondent, ' G., ' reminds one of that 
hero of old whose valor was such that he didn't care 
much if he fought with the French, or the Spaniards, 
or Dutch ; for war so exciting he took such delight in, 
he didn't; care whom he fought so he was fighting. 



52 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 

Scarcely nas he finished his set-to with the doctors than 
he squares up to the Cardinal, and delivers his facers 
as freshly as ever. It is not always that one can get a 
Prince of the Church to tackle, and he evidently enjoys 
the experience immensely. The good Churchman has 
been driven, like the Bailie in 'Rob Roy' with his red- 
hot coulter, to use very queer weapons — for argument, 
like poverty, acquaints us with strange bed-fellows — 
and has even thrown Mill and Fawcet in the teeth of 
his audacious opponent. ' G.'s ' most swashing blow 
has been directed against his Eminence's dogma that a 
starving man has a natural right to food, and raises the 
cry of 4 Stop thief ! ' If the Cardinal, instead of quot- 
ing from the political economists, had done so from the 
Proverbs, i Men do not despise a thief if he steal to 
satisfy his soul when he is hungry,' he would have 
found firmer footing ; but perhaps he thought it wrong 
to quote the -Bible in English, or else that a text from 
the Scriptures would be utterly thrown away on ' G.' 
No one can deny, however, that if the Law is on i G.'s' 
side, the Gospel is on the Cardinal's, and also com- 
mon sense. His Eminence is probably much better 
acquainted with fasting than * G,' and has some approxi- 
mate notion of what real hunger is. 



One of the best and best-known clergymen of the 
Church of England, who from benevolent motives once 
followed the wars, tells me that one of the strangest 
experiences of warfare is the sensation of going into an 
inn from which the inmates have fled, and taking eat- 
ables without paying for them. He would have paid, if 
he could, of course , but it was absolutely necessary to 
eat ? so he ate without pajdng. This is exactly the case 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 53 

of the starving man. What he ought to do, I suppose, 
according to 4 G.,' is to find out the relieving officer 
(which may take hours) and procure from him an order 
for the work-house ( two miles off) — whereas the Car- 
dinal recommends the nearest baker. So far as my 
sleeping arrangements were concerned, it is possible that 
I might take ' G.'s ' advice , but in the meantime, as his 
Eminence suggests, I should most certainly procure a 
loaf. The baker, let us hope, would never miss it ; 
but bread, as I should explain to him if he did (though 
not upon an empty stomach), it was absolutely neces- 
sary for me to have. The case, of course, must be an 
extreme one; I should not be justified in taking more 
than enough to support life ; and I need not say, no 
luxuries, such as a bath bun or a jam tartlet. But to 
say I am actually to starve rather than break the law 
is rubbish. If ' G.'s ' house caught fire, I suppose he 
would not hesitate to escape by his neighbor's roof 
because it would be committing a trespass. I can 
imagine ' G.' making very pretty hay of the Sabbata- 
rians, yet what he would teach us is that the law is not 
made for Man, but Man for the Law. 



A very remarkable case of alleged murder has been 
lately tried on appeal in India. The gist of the whole 
matter was the shape of the wound in the body of the 
deceased, which wound, being triangular, it was argued, 
could not have been inflicted by the spear of the ac- 
cused, which was round and without angles. Years ago, 
in Scotland, there occurred an incident that curiously 
resembles this. Two drovers were sleeping in the 
same room, and one of them was found, in the morning, 
dead. There was no mark of violence about him. 



54 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

except a small incision at the back of the head, which 
was supposed to have been caused by a nail in the 
uncarpeted floor. The survivor admitted that there 
had been a scuffle, and that his adversary had fallen 
backwards and never spoken again. No weapon of any 
kind was found in the room, or, it was proved, had 
been in the possession of either of them. No less than 
nine surgeons examined the body ; eight of them were 
satisfied with the theory of the nail, but the ninth, a 
very young man, protested that the wound could not 
have been inflicted by such means, but must have 
been caused by some sharp and pointed instrument 
driven by the hand into the head. He was overruled, 
of course, and the accused acquitted. On his death- 
bed, however, the murderer confessed that he had 
accomplished his purpose with the snuffers. One is 
glad to add that the discovery made the fortune of the 
astute young surgeon. 

As to those thirteen trumps in a single hand, I have 
not a word to say, either against it or the veracity 
of card-players generally ; but, amongst other advan- 
tages, there is no doubt that the practice stimulates the 
imagination. Southey, who was quite free from prej- 
udice in the matter, and couldn't even call a spade a 
spade of his own knowledge, has embalmed a curious 
anecdote upon the subject. A party of respectable 
persons, who knew they were doing wrong, left the 
opera-house on Saturday night to attend the faro-table 
at Mrs. Sturt's. In the middle of their game — and, of 
course, after midnight — they heard a thunder-clap and 
felt a slight shock of an earthquake. That didn't stop 
them ; but presently the clubs became the color of blood, 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 55 

and the hearts black, when they thought it high time 
to leave off. This happened nearly a hundred years 
ago, in 1776, and has not, I believe, occurred since. 



M. Pasteur, who if he has not 4 gone up like a 
rocket and come down like the stick,' is certainly not 
the success he was once thought to be, has taken a new 
departure : having failed to convince the world that a 
hair of the dog that bit you is a remedy if the dog is 
mad, he has given himself up to hospitality. It is 
difficult, however, for an apostle of vivisection to 
become genial all in a moment. His first dinner was 
given the other day, I read, to a number of rabbits, 
fowls, sheep, and other animals — to whom he certainly 
owed something. The menu consisted of a variety of 
dishes, all of them seasoned with microbes of chicken 
cholera, and the object of the entertainment was to see 
the rabbits and fowls succumb to this fare, while the 
others were none the worse for it. By this he hopes to 
prove that his scheme for destroying all the rabbits in 
Australia by inoculating them with a virulent and 
hereditary disease will succeed, and gain him the 
£25,000 offered for their extirpation. As the Laureate 
once wrote when asked to express his admiration of a 
certain poet, 4 1 dare not say what I think of this gentle- 
man.' Curiously, enough, Dr. Darwin (the first), in his 
4 Temple of Nature,' suggests a scheme for the extir- 
pation of rats in England by importing from America 
some which were suffering from the tapeworm to infect 
them. That was bad enough ; but perhaps it was c only 
his fun' (for the family were full of it), and besides, rats 
are not rabbits* 



56 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWSS 

At Chesapeake Bay, in Maryland, we are told oysters 
pass as current money, and editors receive subscrip- 
tions in them instead of in dollars. In Chesapeake 
circles editors are pitied on this account, and thought 
to be ill-remunerated, and 200 bushels of bivalves is 
considered a small salary. At the present London 
prices it would be a princely revenue, if turned into 
cash. I am an oyster-lover myself ; but, from circum- 
stances over which (though small ones) I have no 
control, I have long ceased to be an oyster-eater — at 
my own expense. Some people say, when they are 
balancing one invitation against another, ' Will there 
be a Lord to meet me, or a Member of the Cabinet? ' 
or, ' Will there be improving conversation, and a word 
in season from the Bishop ? ' But I have long got over 
all those weaknesses, and simply say to myself, ' Will 
there be oysters ? ' and where they are most likely to 
be, I go. There are some people — which proves that 
there is Beneficent Design — who don't like oysters; 
and not even an unprofessional beauty can be compared, 
in my eyes, with such a neighbor ; it is not a question 
of six of one and half a dozen of the other — but of half 
a dozen and a dozen. Some hosts — and these are 
Nature's noblemen — give one eight oysters before 
dinner, which, under the favorable circumstances above 
alluded to, may become sixteen. How shocking it is 
to reflect that the Chesapeake editor gets so much too 
much of oysters, and that I get so much too little ! Of 
course they are imported ; but the fact is, they don't 
bear travel. Out of six American oysters in England 
five have no taste whatever, the sixth is too aesthetic. 
One doesn't forget him for months ; and, what is 
especially fiendish, the recollection of him spoils one's 
relish for good oysters. 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 57 

There is woe in the courts of the law — 

The Q. C. smites his bosom, 
And the Serjeant rends his cope — 

because of the words of doom that the Solicitor-Gen- 
eral has spoken. He ' doesn't see ' why barristers and 
solicitors should not be amalgamated, and cease to ex- 
ist as separate bodies ; it is a mistake, he says, to sup- 
pose that Nature has placed an insuperable bar — the 
' sol, ' 4 solor, ' or solicitor — between the client and the 
man that pleads his cause. Many barristers know a 
great deal about law, he thinks, after all; and many 
solicitors could doubtless speak in court if they were 
given the chance. Of course, this plain speaking will 
bring the Reformer into evil odor ; but it will not ruin 
him, as it would have done twenty years ago — for all 
that time, it seems, he has carried this awful secret 
locked up in his bosom. He has won one of the thirty- 
six prizes open to the calling of a barrister, none of 
which, he tells us, is less than X5,000 a year, and he 
can snap his fingers at everybody. It was only a few 
weeks ago that some ignorant miscreant was complain- 
ing of the incomes made by literary men , whereas I 
honestly believe that there are not thirty-six persons 
following the profession of pure literature who are 
making even five hundred pounds a year. Nor is there 
any pretence that the solicitors are at all behind the 
barristers in the amount of their profits. Under these 
circumstances, I can hardly be expected to sympathize 
with either of these learned bodies. But, as a student 
of human nature, I shall have cause indeed to grieve if 
the two callings are amalgamated. 



58 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

There is nothing, to my mind, more agreeable than 
to watch the behavior, at the social board, of a i rising ' 
young barrister (a term also used for a horse's age, 
and, unhappily, with much more certainty) towards a 
member of ' the lower branch of the profession. 1 There 
is no patronage (far from it), but an obvious desire to 
please. He singles out his inferior as an especial object 
for courteous behavior, and is charmed to find himself 
his neighbor. 

Beside hiin place the God of Wit, 

Before him Beauty's rosiest girls, 
Apollo for a ' Sol ' he'd quit, 
Or Love's own sister, or an Earl's. 

And the Solor knows all about it, and takes the in- 
cense for what it is worth. If anything comes of it, all 
is well ; but, otherwise, the young barrister has been 
sometimes heard to complain of his host's conduct in 
having placed him, though with the most good-natured 
designs, by the side of ' that unsatisfactory old fellow ! ' 
Vested interests have been always respected by the Law, 
and I do hope that, if the change foreshadowed by the 
Solicitor-General should take place, I shall be compen- 
sated for the loss of this social pleasure. There is some- 
thing like it to be gathered from the behavior of a 
young author to a critic under the same circumstances, 
but the literary character is more shy and retiring than 
the legal one, and does not offer the same sport. 



A great authority upon the subject has informed 
the world that it takes three years to make a good 
bicyclist. In the first year a man is prone, it seems, to 
throw himself into the pursuit with too much ardor; 
then he begins to tire of it ; but presently gets what? 



NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 59 

pedestrians call their ' second wind,' and off he goes 
again. I know nothing of the second wind, but a good 
deal about 4 off he goes again.' We must, says this 
two-wheeled sage, ' not be too hot upon the bicycle at 
first.' In that particular I obeyed his instructions, 
and yet have never succeeded in becoming a master of 
the art. I don't know how long ago it is since I began 
to learn ; but it is certainly more than three years. It 
was at some establishment in Piccadilly, which had a 
slanting floor ; this was supposed to be a great advan- 
tage, because the machine went of itself, and, as the 
proprietor of the place asserted, c encouraged you. ' 
Nobody ever went there, that I ever heard of, except 
myself; but dead men tell no tales. As I rushed 
down that declivity, by the dim gaslight, I used to 
wonder whether others had attempted to perform the 
same reckless feat, and fallen victims to their foolhard- 
iness. If you didn't turn the machine sharply when 
you arrived at the bottom you were as dead as the wall. 



I had given two guineas for twelve lessons, and was 
bound to go through with them ; but after the first I 
hired a boy, as I gave out, to instruct me, but in reality 
to ensure my personal safety. He ran by my side, and 
I clung to him with one hand, and sometimes with both, 
as Mr. Winkle on the ice clung to Sam Welle r. When 
I learnt to go alone I stationed him with his back to 
the wall, ostensibly to give me verbal directions ; but 
of course it was understood that he was there to pre- 
vent a catastrophe, which, being very stout for his age, 
he was well fitted to do. His presence there gave me 
confidence, though I protest it never made me careless 
— no, not for a single instant — and I let myself go rather 



60 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

more freely than I should have done. I am sorry to 
have to record it, for the sake of our common nature, 
but, forgetful of the loyalty due to his employer — he 
had not one trace of that feudal feeling which was once 
our country's pride — he ' dodged ' at the critical mo- 
ment, and, but for a spasm of terror which turned the 
handle of the vehicle, I should not now be alive to 
relate his treachery. The machine was shattered to 
fragments ; but the Welsh are right, I think, in attribut- 
ing a certain malevolence as well as ill-luck to some 
inanimate objects — in its last agonies it bit me severely 
in the leg. I have never been ' hot upon bicycles' since 
then. 



Mr. Buskin has been complaining that ' one of the 
increasing discomforts of his old age' is his not being 
allowed by 'the novelists to stay long enough with the 
people he likes ; that the history of all the interest- 
ing persons concludes with marriage. This is surely 
not quite accurate ; for have we not seen Rowena 
after she became Lady Ivanhoe, and did not that 
popular favorite the ' Widow Barnaby,' reappear in 
fiction as c The Widow Married ' ? Of course, however, 
there is a foundation for the statement ; it may be also 
true that 'the varied energies and expanding peace of 
wedded life would be better subjects of interest than 
the narrow aims, vain distresses and passing joys of 
youth ' ; but in this case novels must be in two parts or 
in six volumes ; and the hero and heroine would have 
to be changed, as completely as at the end of the panto- 
mime, when the harlequinade begins. We may be in- 
terested in ' The Belle of the Ball,' but how could our 
interest be transferred to 4 Mrs. Something Rodgers ' ? 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 61 

We may be charmed with the bride ; but is our ad- 
miration to endure when she becomes a mother-in-law? 
We may weep with the governess ; but how shall we 
sympathize with her when she sets up a school on her 
own account? These ladies have lost, not, of course, 
their virtues, but their attractions. Their characters 
have become not only different, but opposite. Our 
feelings towards them would not only have to be 
changed, but to be reversed. Volumes 4, 5, and 6 
would appeal to quite another set of readers. It is 
quite possible that a novel which has nobody under 
middle age in it might be full of c varied energies and 
expanding peace ' ; but who would inquire for it at the 
circulating libraries? When a lady becomes — how shall 
I express it ? Let me borrow aline from the poet, that 
hints at female married maturity : ' We hope she is 
happy : we know she is fat.' Well, after that age, she 
rarely reads novels ; nor would men read novels con- 
cerning her. It is dreadful to anybody — and must be 
more so to Mr. Ruskin — to think of the laws of supply 
and demand having anything to do with literature ; but 
I am afraid they have something to do with 4 his never 
being allowed to stay long enough with the people he 
likes' in fiction. 



It was suggested by a naval reformer that the ter- 
centenary of the defeat of the Spanish Armada would 
be a good one for re-christening our war-ships by 
names with ' historic memories,' and doing away with 
those vulgar little 4 Bouncers ' and i Grippers ' and 
1 Spankers ' that disfigure our list of gun-boats. This 
reformer can never have gone to sea. A sailor sticks 
to his ship, and to the name of it, as he sticks to his 



62 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.'' 

guns. Who that lias read Scott— not Sir Walter, but 
the other — can forget how ' the Torches ' and ' the 
Firebrands' and 'the Midges' identified themselves 
with their gallant barques ? To those who have sailed 
in them they will never smell as sweet under any other 
name. And, after all, what does it matter? The only 
instance where a crew has suffered from nomenclature 
was in the case of the two ships that missed finding 
Sir John Franklin, the failure of which expedition was 
always attributed to 4 those on the Discovery not being 
on the Alert.' There can be no harm, and there is 
some appropriateness, in calling gun-boats 4 Wasps ' 
and * Spitfires.' Historic titles are often connected 
with the classics, and give persons of culture great 
pain through their mispronunciation by mariners. 
Polycrates was very fortunate till he became a figure- 
head, when he changed his sex and was made to rhyme 
with 'mates'; the tresses of Ariadne, when she went 
to sea, were always dwelt upon, thanks to an un- 
necessary aspirate, as though she had no other charms; 
and everybody knows what a sea-change happened to 
the Bellerophon. 



If what one reads, or even a part of it, is true re- 
specting the Whistling Lady, we are likely to hear more 
about bird music — which she has studied so carefully 
— than we have hitherto known ; her imitations of the 
feathered songsters will have a much more general in- 
terest than her accomplishments in other ways, just as 
the Herr Yon Joel of our boyhood (at Evans's) was 
infinitely more popular than the operatic performers 
who trilled and quavered under the same roof. Was 
it mere curiosity and the strangeness of the thing, I 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 63 

wonder, that made us so rapturous over our devilled 
kidneys and champagne, at his rendering of the thrush 
and the nightingale ; or was it the touch of nature, the 
thought of the sylvan scenes his harmony conjured up, 
and in which we had once been virtuous ? There was 
nothing of unreality in his imitations, for birds are 
more imitative than man himself. Even the skylark, 
after it has learned the parent note, will catch the note 
of any other bird in its vicinity ; for which reason bird- 
fanciers place the caged bird near another skylark that 
has not long been caught, to keep it, as they term it, 
* honest.' The difference of the notes and passages 
executed by birds of this kind, though delicate, is very 
marked. The Kentish goldfinch and the Essex chaf- 
finch are held superior to all others, and the Surrey 
nightingales are more highly thought of (however 
the London newspaper may sneer at the provincial 
press) than those of Middlesex. Perhaps it is their 
provincial accent itself which is so pleasant. i The 
nightingale,' says Mr. Barrington, ' has sixteen differ- 
ent beginnings and closes,' with many intermediate 
notes, while other birds have not above four or five 
changes. 4 It continues its song for not less than 
twenty seconds, and whenever respiration becomes 
necessary it is taken with as much judgment as by an 
opera singer.' Little is really known of nightingales, 
though they are such popular favorites. It is gener- 
ally supposed that they are untamable. Yet a near 
relative of my own, who in her old age gave herself 
up to their society, became so popular in it that I have 
seen half a dozen of them flying round her head like 
pigeons, and taking from her very lips the dainty seeds 
she had placed there for their delectation. Few 



64 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

persons are aware that the canary is not an original 
singer, but borrows its notes from the tit-lark and the 
nightingale. The chief breeding-place for canaries 
used to be Innspruck, whence every year four Tyro- 
lese imported about 1,500 of them into England, 
4 Though they carried them on their backs a thousand 
miles,' says Barrington, ' as well as paid a duty of £20 
on the whole number, they made a handsome profit by 
selling them at five shillings apiece.' Now that we 
have a lady who has given so much attention to birds, 
and also possesses the art of imitating them we shall 
look for a popular entertainment indeed. 



I hope she will give us their action and movement, 
which are always graceful and characteristic, as well as 
their song. The strut of the peacock, and the sudden 
and fanlike expansion of his tail, would be perhaps a 
little too farcical (the same remark will certainly, 
apply to the water wagtail) ; but the ' going ' of most 
birds is the very poetry of motion. The 4 run ' of the 
thrush, for example — those half a dozen quick paces 
he takes with the worm in his eye before he transfers 
it to his beak — is infinitely more graceful than that 
with which the ballet-dancer trips on to the stage. 
The jerks and flirts of birds are ravishing to the lover 
of nature. There is nothing in humanity more humor- 
ous than the conduct of the magpie in the exercise 
of his profession — stealing. Even the rook has great 
gifts. As I sit here, looking on to the field by the 
seaside close to a rookery, I see a couple of them — evi- 
dently husband and wife — who have found a dead 
crab on the sand. They are in deep mourning, but 
the sight of it causes them to forget whatever bereave- 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 05 

ment they may be suffering from, as they pounce upon 
this treasure-trove with a hoarse cry of joy. It was 
injudicious and fatal to secrecy but they really couldn't 
help it. Half a dozen other rooks wing their way 
towards them at the glad sound. But the sagacious 
couple are now on their guard. They turn their backs 
on the crab, and even hop a few paces away from it ; 
they talk to one another in ' caws ' of unconcern ; 
their bright eyes glance to left and right in admiration 
of the scenery. ' Crab ? Nothing of the kind,' they 
say, in answer to eager inquiries. ' Upon our word 
and honor, we were only expressing our satisfaction 

at the extraordinary beauty of the ' Here they 

break off, for the crab has been seen by another rook, 
and hop back to it with incredible speed. Nothing is 
left for them but to gobble it up as quickly as possible, 
so that nothing may be left for the others. Action ! 
passion ! There is nothing wanting (except more crab) 
to complete the felicity of their movements. It is as 
good as a play, and better than the nigger minstrels ! 



I am in the country, which must excuse my ' Notes ' 
dealing with bird-notes. Let me speak for a moment 
of that familiar — sometimes a little too familiar — bird, 
the parrot. I don't think much of his whistle. Our 
whistling lady will probably beat him at that ; but, 
on the other hand he gives his own imitations of 
humanity, which may rival her efforts to portray his 
feathered friends. There was of late advertised a par- 
rot who could make original observations — not mere 
slavish ' copy,' but the most apt remarks. A parrot- 
fancier answered this advertisement, and the advertiser 
brought his bird. He was not beautiful, and he did not 



66 NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 

look accomplished. He no sooner opened his mouth, 
however, than his genius discovered itself. ' Suppos- 
ing that this bird is all that you say of it,' inquired the 
possible purchaser, ' what do you want for it? ' ' Fifty 
pounds,' said the dealer. 4 Make it guineas ! ' exclaimed 
the parrot. The enraptured bird-fancier bought him 
at once. Weeks rolled on, and the bird never said 
another word. Not even that solitary sentence, ' Make 
it guineas,' which the purchaser naturally thought he had 
learned by rote — as was the case with that world- 
famous bird that cried, i What a precious lot of parrots ! ' 
(on finding himself in a bird show), and for evermore 
held his peace. He sent for the dealer, and thus frankly 
addressed him : 4 Of course, I have been taken in. 
This infernal bird is dumb ; can't even say, " What's 
o'clock" or "Pretty Poll." ' 'He only professes to 
make original observations,' put in the dealer. k Non- 
sense ! he does nothing but scratch himself. You have 
got your money ; at least, tell me how he contrived to 
say "Make it guineas," at so appropriate a moment. 
I'll forgive you, if you'll only tell me the truth.' ' Very 
good, sir. Then, he didn't say it at all ; 1 said it for 
him. I'm a ventriloquist. My parrots all make orig- 
inal observations, but only in my presence.' Then the 
parrot-fancier shook hands with the dealer, and gave 
him a list of other parrot-fanciers (his personal friends), 
who also in due time were taken in, which, of course, 
was very soothing. 



I wish some one would have the patience (for I 
confess I am dreadfully stupid about it) to explain to 
me the details — the ins and outs — of the great leg- 
before- wicket question. I am all for the leg be- 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 67 

fore the wicket. I would rather wear defensive armor 
of the most cumbrous kind, and be put out fifty- 
times (and I am very easily ' put out ') than get a blow 
on the shin ; but I have an idea that this partisanship 
is without knowledge. There is more than meets the 
eye, or, at all events, my eye, in the controversy. 
What I object to is the pretence which other people 
make of understanding it who are as ignorant as my- 
self. The familiarity with which the point in dispute 
is treated by editors of newspapers, for example, is 
positively indecent. What can they know about it? 
If the game were 4 Nurr and Spell,' they might be ac- 
quainted with the latter part of it, but their cricket I 
should fancy is mostly 4 on the hearth.' Yet to hear 
them talk — or rather read what they write — one would 
think their round of life had been ' the Oval.' I ex- 
tract from one of their leading articles as follows : 
I That bowlers may change ends as often as they please 
(provided that no one bowls two overs in succession) 
is a change as needful as wise.' 'Overs' is here obvi- 
ously a clerical error for ' over.' It is clearly high time 
that something should be done when a man has bowled 
two over ; in my opinion, one such accident is enough. 
And what does it mean by ' changing ends ' ? Are 
they Skye terriers, so that it doesn't matter which way 
you look at them ? As the scribe goes on he becomes 
still more mysterious. ; Bowlers often change ends 
when they are not doing well. Jones taking Brown's 
end, and Brown taking Jones's.' I have often heard 
j Jones say, ' I wish I had Brown s headpiece,' and vice- 
versa ; but I had always thought it a mere complimen- 
tary expression, incapable of being practically carried 
out. I say nothing about ' the determination of the 



68 NOTES FROM THE l NEWSS 

counties to begin at eleven o'clock,' because I can make 
neither head nor tail of it. The limits of counties I 
always understood were settled by land measure. The 
moral question is, however, made a little more intelligi- 
ble. My leading-article-writer says he has 4 no sym- 
paty with scientific legging.' I hope not, indeed, 
though there is much too much of it about. We are a 
good deal humbugged, I fancy, by the men of science. 
I don't go so far as Hampden, junior, who asserts that 
the earth is as flat as a flounder, and that the astrono- 
mers know it ; but I have always had a suspicion that 
it is not quite so round as some people would have us 
believe. If one dips into any report of scientific ' pro- 
ceedings,' it is quite frightful to see how men with half 
the alphabet after their names will use the whole of 
it in applying unpleasant adjectives, suggesting men- 
dacity, to one another. I wish to part good friends with 
my scribe — for, after all, he is not the only person who 
writes with confidence about matters other than cricket- 
balls which are not at his finger-ends — and am happy 
to agree with his concluding remarks: 4 If with any 
part of his body a man wilfully stops a ball, which 
would have otherwise hit the wicket, it should be pro- 
nounced unfair.' Well, of course, it would be unfair 
to any part of the body, and the tenderer it was, the 
worse; but 'unfair' seems hardly the word. To one 
who has watched the velocity of a cricket-ball, and felt 
its hardness, it seems incredible that anybody should 
be fool enough to try it. If the bat can't stop the ball, 
try youv hat; but, at all events, not your leg before 
wicket. 



There is another little thing I should like to have 
some information about — sham battles, These, I am 



NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 69 

told, are of the greatest use to the country ; but as 
they are at present described they are not of the slight- 
est use to me. There have been as many columns in 
the newspapers about the late Easter manoeuvres as in 
the Volunteer forces engaged in them ; but they give 
me no information whatever. It is not that they have 
no interest for me, for I admire and respect our Volun- 
teers beyond measure. They are the only body of men, 
except jurors and witnesses, who give the State their 
services almost gratuitously, and, like them, they are 
most scurvily treated by it. Talk of martyrs ! If mar- 
tyrs get no money, they get a great deal of credit (and 
perhaps eventually a canonry) ; but here are men getting 
up on their March mornings by gaslight, travelling 
hundreds of miles by rail, standing anything but ' at 
ease,' in snow and mud for hours, repelling the assaults of 
an invisible enemy with blank cartridges till dusk ; and 
not only not being paid for it, but losing their day's 
work — perhaps to be told after all's done, by somebody 
who gets £10,000 a year for looking on, that they were 
c a little unsteady' in marching past him. It is surely 
reasonable that the efforts of these patriotic persons 
should be made intelligible to their admirers. How 
can one understand a game the object of which is never 
explained to one, even when it is over? 'The authori- 
ties,' no doubt, know all about it ; but in that case 
they are bound to secrecy, for they keep the matter 
most inviolably to themselves. There have been great 
generals who (after retirement with a pension) have 
confessed that the issue of all engagements depends on 
luck. In that case, it would be much better before 
battle to toss up, when the whole thing (unless one 
lost the coin) wouldn't cost a halfpenny. But if there 



70 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.* 

is anything in the game of war, it is surely explicable. 
It is no use giving us 4 maps of the district,' with little 
arrows pointing, like mad weathercocks, in all direc- 
tions, without telling us what they are pointing at. A 
yacht race is bad enough, where one always confuses 
the drown-you-for-a-shilling-a-head sailing boat, or the 
ReVenue cutter, with the competitors, and the one that 
comes in first, a mile ahead is never the winner (because 
of tonnage) ; but it is clearness itself compared with 
a sham battle. It requires the talents of the Mar- 
chioness, who could pretend so much that she thought 
orange-peel and water Madeira, to understand it ; or 
the audacity of a Dick Swiveller to say one does. 



Everyone knows the lucky prophecy which made 
the fortune of 4 Zadkiel's Almanac.' In China, it 
seems, the almanac — published by the Government 
only — is considered of the utmost importance, as its 
chief mission is to foretell what times and places will 
be lucky for performing all the acts of everyday life. 
We are told that the new Chinese Minister to Germany 
refused to sail on a day declared by this veracious 
publication to be unlucky, and that the departure of 
the German mail-steamer was delayed in consequence. 
I wonder whether any stroke of good fortune, such as 
happened to Zadkiel, was the original cause of this ? 
As a rule, our English prophets — except those numerous 
ones who affirm ' they always told us so ' after the 
event — have not been great successes. The luckiest one 
was an Irish poet, scourged by Pope, called De la Cour. 
He had an idea that, like Socrates, he was attended by 
a demon, who enabled him to foresee future events. 
During our siege of Havannah he predicted very confi- 



MOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 71 

dently at the end of June that it would be taken on 
August 14, which turned out to be the very day of its 
surrender. This established his reputation, and he 
went on prophesying for the remainder of his days, 
and was never right again. 



It is sad enough to hear of any lady the ' mistress of 
five languages,' and who has maintained herself most 
respectably as a day governess for a long life, dying at 
last friendless and deserted, and so penniless as to be 
4 buried by the parish ; ' but how much more shocking 
it seems — from the sense of contrast it awakens — when 
we read, 4 she was the daughter of Theodore Hook ! ' 
It is true it is nearly fifty years since he who set the 
table in a roar at so many a rich man's feast ended his 
days on earth ; but he left a legacy of fun behind him, 
if of nothing else. Did none of those whose dainty 
ears he had tickled give a thought to those who belonged 
to him, I wonder ; or only a thought ? 4 Put not thy 
confidence in princes ' is a text that has a special appli- 
cation to him who lays himself out to amuse them. It 
was on one of this class that Moore wrote those terrible 
lines : 

How proud they can press to the funeral array 
Of one whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow ! 

How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day, 
Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow ! 

But when the man is dead there seems a still lower 
depth of callousness and ingratitude in not providing 
for the wants of those belonging to him, for whom the 
mere crumbs from the rich men's tables would have 
sufficed. Hook would not have been to my taste, but 
be was to theirs ; except, perhaps, Douglas Jerrold, no 



72 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

man had ever so ready a wit; even Sydney Smith, we 
are told, shrank from a contest with it ; and it was 
almost always employed in their entertainment. ' Ser- 
vice," it is written, ' is no inheritance,' and, least of all, 
this sort of 4 dinner service ' ; the obligation which 4 the 
cordial and soul-giving beam ' of the wit confers upon 
his patrons is the one of all others that is never repaid. 



To be the head of our profession is an aspiration for 
everybody, but which can only be realized by one. From 
the existence of this little difficulty it happens that 
ambitious, but only moderately -gifted persons, often go 
into out-of-the-way lines of business, in which there are 
but few competitors, and become chief of this and that 
particular calling with comparative ease. Dando, the 
great oyster-eater, was an example of this class. Up 
to his time people had contented themselves with 
eating as many dozens as they wanted to eat ; but he 
introduced the principle of competition, and became 
the Champion Oyster-Eater. America boasts of many 
such champions. Mr. Hannibal Chollop, of the thriving 
city of Eden, could create 'perfect circles' around 
himself with tobacco-juice, and in that vocation acquired 
an undisputed supremacy. The latest honors accorded 
to exceptional talent have been paid to a young lady 
of Utica, U. S., for gum-chewing. The word may 
appear slightly tautological, but the art is a recognized 
one, and pre-eminence in it lies in chewing spruce gum 
— the chunk in the mouth to be never less than the 
size of a thimble, and the same to be chewed at least 
once every two seconds — for a greater number of hours 
than anybody else can stick to it. In the case in 
question, there were four competitors only, all ladies. 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 73 

* Time was called at 8 A. M.,' when these Graces (and 
one over) commenced their task. Each was carefully 
watched, but allowed a special helper, whose mission it 
was to rub her jaws with brandy, administer warm 
water to soften the gum, and supply fresh chunks. At 
dinner-time, the gum was held on one side of the 
mouth, and the food masticated with the other. At 
noon, toothache prostrated Number One ; at four 
o'clock, Number Two; and at six, we are told, 
Number Three, i with her cheeks wrapped in red flannel, 
was chewing as though each tooth were an egg-shell.' 
4 Inspiring airs were played on the piano ; ' but at ten 
o'clock she owned herself vanquished, and Number 
Four, after a contest of fourteen hours and ten minutes, 
pocketed twenty dollars, and was declared the Cham- 
pion Gum-Chewer of the World. 



Of all the criminals to whom the sensational novelist 
owes his being (or, at all events, his being so popular), 
the gentleman who lives on ; black-mail ' is the one to 
whom he is most indebted. This personage may not 
possess the audacity of the Murderer of the story (I 
mean the real murderer, not the novelist), the personal 
attractions of the Wicked Woman, or the superhuman 
intelligence of the Police Detective ; while I need not 
say, he is utterly destitute of the nobility of the Hero, 
the ethereal mildness of the Heroine, or the angelic 
disposition of the Rightful Heir, cut off, in early boy- 
hood, by a marble (thrust down his throat by the 
W.W., but supposed to have been swallowed accident- 
ally). But without him all these various personages 
would often have no raison d'etre whatever, and might 
just as well have never been born. It is the Black- 



74 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

mailer who discovers the first false step, awakens sus- 
picion and remorse, and dogs the heels of crime (though 
with far from disinterested motives) from first to last. 
His thread in the web of fiction is a most important 
one, and leads unerringly to the catastrophe. I don't 
know what those eminent writers who have that secret 
of curdling human blood, which gives them their own 
fine circulation, would do without him ; and yet, with 
an ingratitude that does them little credit, they have 
utterly neglected his idiosyncrasies, and shown no 
appreciation of his character. I have never seen so 
much as an essay on 4 Black-mailing,' or heard a ser- 
mon directed against this exceedingly popular offence. 
It is to the stories of real life, as told in our Courts of 
Justice, that we are indebted for what information 
we possess upon the subject, and very curious it is. 



-_ case nas just occurred of two young gentlemen, 
aged respectively but sixteen and nineteen, who are 
alleged to have taken up with this profession, and to a 
certain extent admitted the soft impeachment — though 
it was a pretty long one. Their defence seems to be 
that ' the prosecutor never complained of their coming 
to him for money.' They may be innocent as the new- 
fallen snow, or even snow that has not ' fallen,' and I 
hope they are ; I quote only the prosecutor's story, a 
youth of as tender years as themselves, though at 
present languishing in chains for stealing from his 
employer's till. He not only stole, which was a crime, 
but boasted of it, which is a blunder indeed; and from 
that moment became the prey of his two confidants. 
4 You haven't got two half-crowns about you ? ' was 
their first remark ; then every other day or so, ' Have 



NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 75 

you five shillings ? ' i Have you a pound ? ' 4 Have 
you five pounds ? ' — a rate of increase one had supposed 
to be the peculiar property of geometrical progression. 
4 Because if you haven't,' they always added, 'we must 
knock '—an elliptical expression for knocking at his 
employer's door, which I suppose was handy. Hence- 
forth, according to the prosecutor's statement (who 
may be a novelist himself for all I know, and invented 
it all), he went to the till, as naturally as to his own 
house, though no longer with a selfish motive, but only 
to oblige his friends. What is interesting in the matter 
is the amazing greed and reckless importunity of these 
(alleged) black-mailers. There is no other crime to be 
compared with this for voracity. The drunkard who 
(if we are to believe our teetotal friends), begins with 
a glass of alcoholic liquor on Sunday, and takes his 
quart of gin without winking on Saturday night, goes 
slowly down the hill in comparison with the black- 
mailer. He doesn't know how to wait — as the Prince 
Regent, according to the Duke of Wellington, knew 
how to be a gentleman — even for ten minutes. Supply 
creates demand with a precipitation beyond the teach- 
ings of Political- Economy. Upon the whole (though 
it doesn't look like it), this is a benevolent provision of 
nature. The poor wretch yields up his guilty secrets, 
the goose lays her last golden egg^ and makes a clean 
breast of it — all the sooner. 



There are many persons better qualified than myself 
to speak of the attainments of Matthew Arnold, but I 
know something of the impression they produced on 
the world at large. If not, like Shelley, a poet's poet, 
he was the poet of the cultured classes ; and his prose 



76 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 

appeals, though less exclusively, to a public of excep- 
tional intelligence. The ear of the people he had not, 
nor, perhaps, sought to have ; but this by no means 
detracted from his fame, and, indeed, in a manner 
heightened it. The general estimation in which his 
works are held is very similar to that of some long- 
established and ancient author, without whom no 
gentleman's library can be pronounced complete, who 
is read by a comparative few, but those few readers of 
the highest class. Lord Beaconsfield once said to him, 
4 You are the only writer I ever knew, Mr. Arnold, 
who has become a classic in his lifetime.' And he 
never made a more sagacious remark. It pleased the 
object of his eulogy exceedingly, and very frankly he 
was wont to confess it. It has been often said of 
Matthew Arnold, that he had a great deal of vanity ; 
but, if so, it was the only superficial thing about him ; 
it was but skin-deep, and, like a woman's blush, became 
him exceedingly. There was no sort of pretence about 
it, and a great deal of pleasantness. 



The first time I saw him, now forty years ago, was 
at Harriet Martineau's, close to his own home at the 
Lakes, and when he was ' disgustingly young and hand- 
some,' as old Crabbe Robinson said of him. I had been 
reading his ' Strayed Reveller,' which had then just 
been published, and was full of youthful admiration of 
it; but there was something more attractive in the 
man to me than even in the poet. He had a gentle, 
affectionate way with him, which he never lost — a 
genial naturalness contrasting strangely with the arti- 
ficiality and fastidiousness of his ' views ' ; and it will 
embalm his memory with all who knew him. He was 
kind, as I have cause to know, even to the Philistine. 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 77 

The times in which we live have been described as 
an age of incredulity ; we are accused of believing in 
nothing, but least of all in the fidelity of the female 
and in the comfort and consolation of the marriage tie. 
It has been cynically stated that if a general release 
from the matrimonial bond could be obtained to-day, 
there would be no more married couples to-morrow 
than there would be meli in a club after a ballot had 
been held for the exclusion or retention of its mem- 
bers ; and that none of the Emancipated would marry 
again. For my part, I believe this to be a monstrous 
libel, utterly without foundation ; and it is pleasant 
to find this healthy view corroborated by an instance 
from real life, though culled from a police-court. In 
South wark lived a young married couple of the name 
of Lang, between whom existed what is called in higher 
circles ' an incompatibility of temper ' ; instead of 'saying 
things ' at one another, it is probable that they threw 
things. Lang had a chivalrous friend, one Dawson, 
who pitied Mrs. L. and resented her husband's treat- 
ment of her. Instead of being angry at this, as many 
a better-born man would have been, L. took a prac- 
tical view of the matter. ' Since you are so precious 
fond of my Rosina,' he said, 'you'd better take her. 
If you'll give me forty shillings I'll burn my marriage 
certificate, and then, of course, you can marry her 
yourself.' And the little matter was so arranged 
accordingly. It was faulty in law, but the parties con- 
cerned were simple people. If you burn a will, the 
whole transaction becomes invalid ; and the same thing 
happens, they doubtless thought, if you burn a marriage 
certificate. Now comes the idyll. Mr. and Mrs. Daw- 
son were perfectly 4 compatible ' in temper, and would 



78 NOTES FBOM THE 'NEWS: 

have ' lived happy ever afterwards,' like any prince or 
princess in a fairy tale ; it was seldom that a marriage, 
certainly de conveyance, had turned out to be such a 
union of the affections. ' George and I are as happy as 
the day is long,' said Rosina, when she stood in tears 
before the Magistrate. Her demeanor, indeed, is 
described by the reporter as a ' most affecting sight.' 
Lang had discovered that there was something amiss in 
the transfer, and wanted ten pounds from Dawson to 
make it right. Rosina said : ' Don't give it him ; I'm 
not worth it.' So they all three went together to the 
police-station, to get, as it were, 'counsel's opinion.' 
The result — as often happens when you do get it — was 
deplorable. Lang, it is true, was found to have com- 
mitted bigamy, after getting rid, as he then thought, of 
Rosina (another proof, by-the-way, that even after an 
experience of matrimony, it still has its attractions) ; 
but poor Rosina and her beloved object found them- 
selves accused of the same offence. ' It seems very 
hard,' said Dawson, as he well might. He had paid 
fortyi shillings for his wife ; and all the forms of law, so 
far as he knew, had been complied with. In France 
(he might have added) it is universally believed that 
Englishmen may and do sell their wives — but it is 
probable this last reflection was spared him. 



The death of the actor Frederic Baker on the stage 
at Melbourne has made a great sensation in that city. 
The fact that he was playing the part of Mephis- 
topheles in 'Faust' no doubt heightened the melo- 
dramatic effect of it on the beholders, and it was also 
probably the first time a similar catastrophe has taken 
place in Australia. Death on the stage, however, is a 



NOTES FROM THE l NEWSS 79 

not very uncommon occurrence, and when we consider 
the highly-wrought condition of an actor's nerves, and 
the exciting nature of his occupation, it seems strange 
that it should not be more frequent. How many of 
us, who pursue other callings, are told by the doctor 
that 4 all violent emotion and exercise should be 
avoided,' and that getting into a passion, or running 
' to catch a train,' are equally deleterious ! And what 
are these excitements compared with the feelings of an 
actor who identifies himself with his part? The 
curious coincidences, as they are called, in the fitness 
of the words of the drama spoken by the dying man, 
are merely instances of cause and effect ; their peculiar 
appropriateness to his situation no doubt brings to a 
head, as it were, the catastrophe that was impend- 
ing, and which would have happened in any case. 
Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why, in so many 
instances, the fatal seizure should take place at so apt 
a moment. The best-known case is that of John 
Palmer, who died in 1798, at Liverpool, while perform- 
ing as 4 The Stranger,' and in the very act of saying, 
8 There is another and a better world.' In this instance 
there were predisposing causes, for on that very day 
the actor had received the news of the death of his 
favorite son. Mr. Bond, an amateur, met the same 
sudden fate as Lusignan in Voltaire's c Zara ' : his 
(scenic) emotion at the discovery of his daughter is 
described as ' excessive ' and 4 prodigious,' and the 
house • rang with applause,' we are told, at the faint- 
ing-fit from which he never recovered. Mr. Paterson, 
at Norwich, as the Duke in 4 Measure for Measure,' 
expired in the act of saying : 



80 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

Reason thus with life, — 
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing 
That none but fools would keep. 

And at Leeds in 1817, Mr. Cumming, in ' Jane Shore,' 
fell dead upon the stage just after he had pronounced 
the benediction : 

Be witness for me, ye celestial hosts, 
Such mercy and such pardon as my soul 
Accords to thee, and begs of Heaven to show thee ; 
May such befall me at my latest hour. 

What seems curious in this last case, and sheds some 
light upon a recent controversy, the actor had played 
Dumont for half a century, and yet, as it would 
appear, still experienced the emotions proper to the 
part in only too great intensity. 



A newspaper has been falling foul of a platform 
orator for applying an old joke to a modern circum- 
stance, without acknowledgment. ' Better late than 
never,' is a proverb, I suppose, as applicable to the 
censure of plagiarism as to anything else ; but that the 
journalist should feign astonishment at the offence, as 
though he had discovered a new crime, was surely 
superfluous. I seldom read political orations, but 
when my eye glances over them and is attracted 
by the interpolation, ' Laughter,' I am pretty sure of 
meeting with an acquaintance of some standing. Poli- 
ticians may not be so roguish as their opponents make 
them out to be, but they steal jokes by wholesale, and, 
though they sometimes spoil them, have not the time, 
I suppose, to destroy their identity. Of course there 
are a few orators of original wit, but, in front of most 
platforms, one could stand, as Piron did before the 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 81 

dramatic plagiarist, and take off one's hat twenty times 
to an old friend. What I admire most is the courage 
with which they relate an anecdote i curiously 
apposite,' they venture to think, 4 to the occasion,' as 
having happened to themselves personally, which in 
that case must have done so a century and a half ago. 
That the story gives so much satisfaction to their 
adherents arises, perhaps, from the proof it affords of 
the robustness of their idol's constitution; for even 
the people that delight in being c speechified ' can 
hardly fail to recognize its hoar antiquity. If they 
read anything but ' election intelligence,' they must 
have seen it somewhere. It is not only the platform, 
however, which plagiarizes ; the pulpit is almost as 
bad, and especially in the article of jokes ; and it is 
very hard, considering how light literature is looked 
down upon from both those eminences, how heavily 
they lay it under contribution. In last week's report 
of the great guns of politics and divinity, I note no 
less than five instances where, to say the least of it, 
they were not using their own thunder. Of course, 
literary people are often plagiarists ; but their sin is 
pretty certain to find them out, or to be found out for 
them ; whereas our orators and divines owe their most 
attractive features — their fireworks — to sources they 
do not condescend to indicate. I once ventured to 
point out to one who had made a very telling speech 
(not on my side) in the provinces, that three of his 
anecdotes could only have been said to be his own 
(and, indeed, one of them was mine) in the same sense 
that Shakespeare has been said to 4 convey ' things — by 
divine right of genius. He answered me in a manner 
which gave me a much higher notion of his wits (and 

6 



82 NOTES FROM THE <NEWS. y 

even of his audacity) than his speeches had ever done. 
4 Do you remember,' he said, k what the French poet 
Desportes replied to the gentleman who wrote a book 
pointing out his plagiarisms from the Italian — " If I 
had known your design, my good sir," he said, "I 
could have furnished you with a great many more 
instances than you have selected." ' 



I suppose it is right that the good folk who intend 
to benefit us by their benevolence after death seldom 
inform us of their intentions in their lifetime. There 
is a proverb against good intentions, in connec- 
tion with the future of those who do not keep 
their words to honest and deserving people, which 
may have its weight with them; or they may wish to 
spare us the sense of obligation derived from favors 
to come ; or* they may think it possible that between 
now and their decease they may have a quarrel with 
us, and wish to leave their money to somebody 
else ; or they may not like the idea of their personal 
loss to us being mitigated by the prospect of getting 
some of their personal property. At all events, they do 
keep this very interesting matter to themselves, and for 
my part — though I would venture delicately to point 
out that there are ways by which rich persons can benefit 
the deserving other than dying for them, or even before 
them — I am inclined to think they are right in so doing. 
A contrary course would interfere with the freedom of 
social intercourse. One could not contradict a man — 
much less a lady — who had said he was going to leave 
us £50,000 , and I should be uncommonly careful how 
I even differed from him. Indeed, I have known cases 
where the very greatest precautions have not prevented 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.* 83 

previsions of this kind coming to nothing, and to even 
an expression of personal opinion (in the codicil revok- 
ing the legacy) which was several degrees worse than 
nothing. (Why, by-the-way, people are allowed to 
4 say things' in wills, which anybody can read for a 
shilling, that they mustn't say anywhere else, has always 
puzzled me — but that's a detail.) Moreover, where 
there is no such necessity for secrecy in the matter, as 
in the bequests to public bodies, I have noticed that 
when the testator announces beforehand his intention to 
benefit them, he never carries it out ; and I have known 
him to even leave his money to an opposition institute. 
An eminent friend of mine once caused quite a flutter of 
gratitude in the Phrenological Society by promising 
them his head when he should have no further use for 
it. Yet, somehow, they never got it. And now I read 
that a great female philanthropist, still in life, has 
revoked a similar gift to the College of Surgeons. I 
hardly think, however, that this change in the post- 
mortem disposal of one's head should be set down in 
the ordinary category of non-performances. Perhaps 
some bump comes out upon it in the meantime — such 
as Economy — or another goes in — such as Lavishness — 
which alters the conditions, and compels the owner of 
the property in spite of himself to take another view of 
its destination. 



I have often wished to be a clergyman, and cannot 
understand why my friends say it is 4 just as well' (some 
even say ' better ') that I did not carry that design into 
execution. Of all things in this world I should like to 
stand up in a lofty pulpit and read out (none of your 
extempore preaching for me) exactly what I please, 



84 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 

and never be contradicted. What a chance for a man, 
even if it occurred but once in a lifetime, and the 
divines have it every week! At Athens (U. S. A.) a 
minister has been abusing this privilege to the extent 
of preaching his own funeral sermon. He said, ' I know 
my own faults, and my own good points, as nobody else 
knows, and I'm not going to have people, after I am 
gone, talking of a thing they don't understand.' The 
whole affair was arranged as though it had been the real 
thing, with the minister's family in their pew in the 
deepest mourning. He abstained from reviling his 
enemies in a very creditable manner, with the exception 
of some people in Alabama ; and, even in that case, he 
made it less a personal matter than one of locality. 'I 
have been called by the Lord to eleven States,' he said, 
4 except one, to which the Devil called me, and that 
was Alabama.' A more free-spoken sermon (though 
the preacher, of course, was not a Free thinker^) was 
never heard. To think that I have missed such an op- 
portunity as this — open, I suppose, to every clergyman 
— is deplorable. Individuals like Lord Brougham, for 
instance, have pretended to die in order to read what 
was said of them in the papers ; but to be able to write 
one's autobiography and read it out to people who can't 
even so much as say, 4 Oh, I like that ! ' (meaning that 
they don't, or that they disbelieve it) is a chance that 
can never happen to a layman. I was once asked by 
an enterprising editor to compose for him 'a cheerful 
obituary ' of an eminent friend then in ill-health (but 
who is, happily, not dead yet) and I declined ; but if 
anyone should ask me to write my own (and will pay 
for it in advance) I am prepared to do business with 
him. Even in that case, however, there might be other 
obituaries, where my good points might not be so well 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 85 

handled ; whereas a 'funeral ' sermon settles every thing, 
and entirely to the satisfaction of the person most 
concerned, for good and all. 



Rarely as the world at large acknowledges its 
greatest benefactors, this is still more true of callings 
and interests which have been specifically advantaged. 
How many who obtain fellowships at the university, 
for instance, give a thought to the ' pious founder ' ? 
How many who have been assisted by the Literary 
Fund have ever heard, except in connection with the 
Crystal Palace, of Sydenham ? And how many of 
those who administer the affairs of certain companies, 
with exceeding profit to themselves, ever bless the mem- 
ory of Peter Hopkins (I conclude it was Peter, but 
history is so slipshod and careless in its process of 
embalming him that it only gives his initial letter). 
Of his birth we know nothing; but that he should 
have died (in 1809) 'in an obscure lodging near Moor- 
fields,' neglected and penniless, is only what one would 
have expected of a man who should be a patron saint 
of so many people. He is brought to my own recol- 
lection only by a curious coincidence in connection 
with a recent winding-up order (and even that I daren't 
mention for fear of an action for libel). Mr. P. Hop- 
kins 'made a very handsome independence by making 
sets of books for those who, for their own interests, 
were obliged to appear before certain gentlemen in 
commission at Guildhall.' In other words, he was the 
first person in the City of London who ever directed 
his attention to the art of cooking accounts. Matthew 
Hopkins one has heard of, and even of Samuel Hop- 
kins, founder of the ' Hopkinsian Theology ' (and the 
hero of Mrs. Beecher's Stowe's ' Minister's Wooing ') ; 



86 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

but how silent is the voice of fame about P. Hopkins ! 
It must be allowed, however, that he had one advan- 
tage which is denied to his unconscious imitator of 
to-day — the lottery. i He was the first person who 
suggested the idea of imputing the losses of bankrupts 
to speculations on the lottery,' and procured the unsuc- 
cessful numbers Q collected at 2s. a-piece ') as having 
been unfortunately drawn by his employers. Yet in 
1859 there was no jubilee for Hopkins, nor for his many 
disciples is there in all the city a single shrine. 



I am always a little suspicious of the excellent peo- 
ple who tell me ' natural history stories.' They are 
like travellers' tales — and we know what they are. 
How we all used to believe in the dog that Landseer 
painted and called 4 A member of the Royal Humane 
Society ' ! Everybody now knows that that dog — with 
the best intentions in the world — used to drown people 
with his affectionate paws instead of saving them. Is 
there anybody who has not met the man that owned 
the dog who travelled in a basket from London to 
Aberdeen by railway, and came home — covered with 
mud, and in a very bad condition, but still came home 
— by road in a week ? But does anybody know the 
dog? The last anecdote of instinct appears in the 
Nineteenth Century — related, one is glad to see, by a 
gentleman ' on whose testimony reliance may be placed ' 
— about a shark. The shark is a creature who has 
been hitherto much neglected as a hero. He is gen- 
erally the Bad Character of natural history stories, and 
it is quite refreshing to read a narrative to his advan- 
tage. Even now we have still to hear of his domestic 
affections, his gratitude, or even of his dormant sense 
of humor. When he turns so playfully over on his 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 87 

back it has hitherto been supposed to be for the 
greater convenience of swallowing the British seaman. 
Let us hope that, like so many of us, he has been mis- 
understood; and, in the meantime, let us be thankful 
to believe in his indomitable perseverance. 4 The men 
let go a shark-hook, and soon captured a large shark. 
They cut the unhappy creature open, extracted the 
liver (which contains a considerable quantity of 
oil), and flung the carcase overboard. In a few min- 
utes there was another tug at the hook, and, to the no 
small surprise of the fishermen, they brought up the 
very shark they had just thrown away as dead.' Doubt 
has been expressed about this tale. Anecdotes of the 
marvellous powers of the dog, and for all I know, of 
the dogfish, are swallowed, so to speak, hook and all ; 
but this trait of the poor shark is received with incred- 
ulity. This is not only unfair, but illogical. For 
what is it that interferes with the appetite (not to say 
the voracity) of man, but his liver — and it was only 
his liver that the shark had lost. 



The difficulty which boys and girls experience in 
expressing their ideas upon subjects not to be found in 
the Encyclopaedia is notorious. Their essays are gen- 
erally bristling with facts, more or less recondite, and 
with reflections of the most philosophic kind. What 
' stumps ' them is the being asked to put their own 
thoughts regarding any familiar matter into words. 
An examiner at a seminary for young ladies requested 
one of them the other day to give him her notion of 
what sort of telegram she would send to her father in 
the event of her having met with a railway accident. 
It was a thing that might occur, of course, and the 



88 NOTES FROM TEE 'NEWS: 

lesson prove useful ; but, in any case, it would give 
an idea of her mental resources. He threw out no 
hints, but, with the proviso that it should be as brief 
as possible, left the whole composition to the young 
lady's imagination. This was the telegram : • Dear 
mamma is killed ; Jane (her sister) and I are in the 
ref reshment-r oo m . ' 



The great question that is agitating the readers of 
light literature just now is, 'Do novelists weep over 
their works ? ' They do, indeed ; and have plenty 
of reason to do so. Novels are like teeth — bad in 
coming, bad in going, and, what is worse, by no means 
a source of joy even when they are 4 out.' When the 
thing is in MS. we weep because it isn't in print ; and 
very often, when it is in print, we have good cause to 
weep because it isn't in MS. If it was not that he is 
(as is well known) so philosophical, the novelist would 
be a Niobe — all tears. Some of them, indeed, affect to 
be in tearing spirits, but these are in reality the most 
melancholy specimens of the whole lot. When we 
come to consider the matter, how can it be otherwise ? 
In youth they cannot get their book published for love 
or money ; love, in fact, may be left out of the ques- 
tion. Whoever heard of a publisher's first love — I 
mean of his being in love with a first book? And, on 
the other hand, where is the young author who has 
the money to publish it at his own expense ? The 
huge manuscript rolls back to him, like the stone of 
Sisyphus, from half the ' houses ' in Paternoster Row ; 
sometimes curtly, i with thanks ' ; sometimes more 
offensively, with compliments ( ' your novel has great 
merit, but ' — mere butter) ; sometimes it doesn't come 



NOTES FROM THE ( NEWS: 89 

back at all. ' Tears, idle tears,' says the poet, 4 we 
know not what they mean ; ' but the young novelist 
knows very well — believe me. With a dead lift, or by 
the most shameless cringing to a moneyed aunt 
(declared by her other nephews to be out of her 
mind), he succeeds, when in middle life, in seeing his 
work in print. I grant this is a moment of ecstacy ; but 
it doesn't last even till the reviews come out. The 
' critics on the hearth ' (his family) are all amazed at 
his indiscretion, but not so stupefied with astonishment 
that they cannot express it. How could he throw his 
money away, or worse, his poor aunt's money, in such 
a ridiculous way ? He write ? Then the real critics 
— the sworn tormentors — begin their work. Weep ? 
— it is almost enough to make the angels weep, and 
the middle-aged novelist, though tending that way, is 
not yet an angel. But suppose (for you may suppose 
anything) the poor wretch is successful — popular. 
That is the unforgivable sin in Letters. Of course he is 
then a charlatan, and a plagiarist, but his private charac- 
ter also begins to suffer. He smokes like a furnace, he 
drinks to excess, he beats his aunt — the aunt to whom 
he owes everything in life; and if not in Newgate, 
which is the proper place for him, he ought to be in a 
lunatic asylum. This is told in the London news- 
papers, and copied into all the country ones. Weep, 
I should think he did weep ; but he can't weep that 
away. Still, if he is popular at the libraries he can 
bear a good deal of obloquy. What he can not bear is 
the recollection that he has sold his copyright, and 
very cheap. Then he weeps indeed. 



The report of the London Society for the Prevention 



90 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

of Cruelty to Children is simply shocking. Let those 
who prate of our growing civilization and 'the in- 
fluences for good that are permeating every section of 
society' read the evidence concerning this section, and 
cease their boasts. Above all, let the philanthropists, who 
will not suffer the torturers of these defenceless little 
ones to receive the only punishment they can under- 
stand, lest, forsooth, they should be 'brutalized' by it 
(as though a smut could hurt the complexion of a 
black man !), shut their mealy mouths. Though it is 
quite true that what other people have to bear we 
should surely be able to bear to read of, I dare not 
quote the cruelties — all proved in our police-courts — 
which this report narrates. What the Apostles suf- 
fered of old, these little victims, who are no martyrs, 
have suffered in our own time. They have borne the 
cross without the crown. Two thousand of them, 
within less than four years, in London alone, have been 
treated, but not for heresy— there was no shallowest 
excuse for it, no shadow of a reason, unless the brutal 
lust of cruelty is a reason — as the Inquisition treated 
those who differed from its creed centuries ago. The 
scourge, the thong, the hot-iron ; the fire-grates at 
which the little hands were held, the blows, the star- 
vation, the rasping of the tender flesh with files — all 
these horrors, and much more and worse, have been 
used upon little children in our very midst, while our 
divines have been brawling over their dogmas, and our 
lawyers splitting hairs. If Law and Religion are use- 
less to restrain such acts, a man who has read this 
terrible record is almost tempted to sa} T , ' Then let us 
have vigilance committees who will do their work for 
them.' It has been well said by a living judge that 



NOTES FBOM THE 'NEWS. > 91 

there are crimes committed amongst us worse than 
murder, and more deserving of being punished with 
death ; and surely the deliberate torture of little chil- 
dren (often too, by their own flesh and blood !) is one 
of them. There are many evil things done in the far 
West of America, but not these things ; Judge Lynch 
sees to it. With all our boasted culture and civilization 
we might well take a lesson from the most homely 
people in this matter. In Finland — so far back even 
as sixty years ago — cruelty of this fiendish kind was 
nipped in the bud. It was held, and rightly held, to 
be a crime not only against the individual but the 
State ; and it was not allowed to grow. If a boy tor- 
tured an animal it was concluded that he would become a 
dangerous citizen, and he was therefore made a public 
criminal. 4 In Abo,' we read, 'a dog that had been 
run over by some vehicle crawled into a doorway, 
where the boy of the house first stoned and afterwards 
poured boiling water over the poor animal.' ( l Hor- 
rible ! ' exclaims the gentle reader, with a shudder. 
Read the report above mentioned, my fastidious friend, 
and see what is done next door to you — but not to 
dogs !) A magistrate heard of it, and told his fellows. 
The lad, fifteen years of age, was brought before them, 
and thus addressed : ' Inhuman young man ! because 
you added to the torments of the poor animal that im- 
plored your aid by its cries, and who derived its being 
from the same God as yourself, the Council of the City 
sentences you to wear on your breast the name that 
you deserve, and to receive fifty stripes.' After he had 
had twenty-five of them the magistrate continued his 
lecture : 4 You have now felt a very small degree of the 
pain you inflicted on a helpless animal in its hour of 



92 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 



. 



death. As you wish for mercy from that God who ere- 
ated all that live, learn humanity for the future.' Then 
he got the other twenty-five. The lash, I am glad to see, 
is going to be used in punishment for these fiendish 
crimes ; and why not the placard also ? 



There is always, unhappily, a doubt as to how our 
matrimonial ventures will turn out. There can be no 
trial-race for the Marriage Stakes. If not actually in 
the dark about it, the prospect is misty. Still, how- 
ever applicable in the way of metaphor, it is scarcely 
a nice thing to do to celebrate a wedding by fog-signals. 
This has just been done, on the Great Western Rail- 
way, with the result that a team of cart-horses close to 
the line were frightened out of their wits, ran away, 
and killed the wagoner. At the inquest, the jury 
' requested * that the railway company should be in- 
formed that fog-signals ought not to be used for wed- 
ding purposes.' A very proper presentment, too ! But 
conceive the state of mind of any company that thought 
they ought to be ! It may be said it had no other 
means — short of a collision — to express its delight on 
the happy occasion. This reminds me of the tribute 
of admiration paid to a justly popular English astron- 
omer by an agricultural State in America. ' We have 
no academical distinction to offer you,' said the chair- 
man of the board of reception ; ' but we have done our 
best. We have named our trotting-pony after you, 
sir.' 



The course taken by those who write of our illus- 
trious dead is invariable, but to the student of human 
nature not the less remarkable on that account. An ex- 



NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 93 

ample of it has just happened, to which it is not neces- 
sary to allude, but which draws one's attention to the 
fact. First, then, when a great man is lost to us there 
is a salute, varying, according to the fame of the 
deceased, from twenty-one to a hundred and one guns. 
The laudation is excessive, and fills the air; no whis- 
per of detraction can be heard in it ; the atmosphere is 
thick with praise. One would think that no man had 
ever left his fellow creatures whom they had (though 
some of them hitherto in secret ) so much admired as 
that man. The gaiety of the nation is hushed. Then 
there is a silence ; then a dropping fire of eulogy. 
Gentlemen who have known the departed, and are not 
unwilling that their acquaintance with so illustrious 
a personage should be generally understood, lay their 
individual wreaths upon his tomb. This aggravates 
their friends, who did not know him so well, or know 
him at all, excessively, and instead of attacking these 
later eulogists they attack him — a most illogical, and, 
as I venture to think, a very unchivalrous proceed- 
ing. If they have really cause for censure, why have 
they not had the courage to mention it before? It 
cannot be from delicacy of feeling, for the grass has 
not even yet grown over his grave^ Why, then, do 
they wait ? Because it is not till the paean of praise 
has rolled away that the penny trumpet of detraction 
can gain a hearing ; and it is curious how often the 
lesser sound outlives the greater. 



It should be some solace to poor people to reflect on 
the discomforts rich ones often put themselves to in 
the pursuit of what they call their pleasures. As we 
retire to our lowly beds, at our usual modest hour, it 



94 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 

is not unsatisfactory to dwell upon the fact that the 
sons and daughters of Fashion are about to begin the 
labors of the night ; to perspire in crowded rooms, to 
jostle one another on staircases, to partake standing* 
as at a City lunch, of very necessary refreshment, 
and often to emerge from one sparkling throng only 
to go through the same ordeal in another. Above all, 
as we smoke our pipe after our simple meal, how it 
delights the soul to picture the formal dinner-party 
descending two by two into the ark of boredom, not to 
be emancipated therefrom till the waters of small talk, 
two hours and a half hence, abate ! In dining, provided 
they have had the wherewithal to dine at all, the poor 
have always had their advantage. In the days of Rome 
they sat on benches (like Christians) ' while the upper 
ten ' poised themselves on one elbow on beds of silver, 
and at the shrine of fashion sacrificed both comfort and 
digestion. It is only people that go to picnics, with- 
out the precaution of taking campstools with them, 
that have any notion of what Heliogabalus and Pom- 
pey, and the Roman aristocracy generally, suffered at 
their dinner-parties. Economy, indeed, was not wholly 
neglected ; for if you omitted to remove your sandals, 
the lady of the house would remark, rather sharply 
(though of course in Latin), ' I say, be so good as to 
remember my cushions,' or even give a still broader 
hint by the production of a pair of her husband's slip- 
pers. I suppose not even Fashion will ever again per- 
suade us to eat lying down ; but it is always devising 
some new discomfort or another. The last comes from 
the Land of the Free. We are told that at very dis- 
tinguished tables in America the wretched men have 
to rise at every course, and take their places by the side 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 95 

of a new enslaver. Conceive, after having got on 
tolerably good conversational terms with one's fair 
neighbor — done with the weather, and waded half 
through the theatres and the picture galleries — having 
to begin all over again with a fresh one ! No ; not a 
fresh one — with a poor damsel who has just suffered 
the same wrongs at the hands of somebody else ! This 
method of entertainment, which seems in a measure to 
combine dancing (the ; Lancers ') and dining, is pro- 
nounced by the social journals to be 'agreeable and 
unique.' But the more unique, I should imagine, the 
more agreeable. 



In the Century for May there is an interesting 
article upon ' The Chances of Being Hit in Battle,' 
culled from the records of the great war between 
North and South. Upon the whole, the result is 
encouraging to warriors. We know what Falstaff's 
views were upon the subject. He thought the bet- 
ter part of valor was discretion, but was much too 
sagacious to run away. It may be said that he was 
too fat to run, but I am sure that he was also too wise. 
The danger of running away from battle is extreme; a 
course only to be recommended if total defeat is cer- 
tain beforehand. A case of the latter kind is recorded 
(but not in the histories) in our Indian annals. A 
certain lieutenant, in command of a small company, 
who had been already wounded in the leg in a pre- 
vious engagement, found himself face to face with an 
immensely superior force of the enemy. 4 My men,' 
he said, i your bravery is well known to me ; I foresee 
you will go at these fellows with the greatest pluck, 
though they are ten to one. I also foresee that you 



96 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

will get a tremendous licking, and have to run for 
your lives. As I am a little lame, you will excuse me 
for starting at once.' And off he went. This pru- 
dence is indeed unusual. Still, nobody wants to be 
hit. To the majority of combatants a battle is prob- 
ably less enjoyable in itself than in its retrospection. 
It is like dining with the King — full of honor and 
glory, but still a thing to congratulate one's self upon 
having got over without a hitch ! The general notion 
is that a large proportion of soldiers in a bloody war 
are either killed or wounded. A considerable number, 
indeed, are killed ; many more are wounded ; very 
many more die of disease of various kinds ; and about 
the same number that are killed desert at favorable 
opportunities. ' Nothing is definitely known about 
them at the time, so the tendency is to consider only 
the total of casualty, and in time to think of them as all 
killed or lost.' The Civil War in America was a 
very sanguinary one ; even the horsemen suffered ter- 
ribly, in spite of General Hooker's inquiry, ' Who ever 
saw a dead cavalryman ? ' The total of ; killed ' on the 
Union side was no less than 110,070 men out of 
2,200,000, or five per cent. — 4 a greater percentage 
than that of the Crimean or Franco-German wars.' 
Some regiments had frightful losses. In the First 
Maine Artillery 423 men were killed, or died of 
wounds, out of 2,202 men enrolled — an average of 
twenty per cent. ! The Confederates, though their 
casualty-list is not so trustworthy, seem to have 
suffered even more. The 26th South Carolina Regi- 
ment, who went into action at Gettysburg 800 strong, 
had 86 killed and 512 wounded. Still, no regiment 
was ever ' cut to pieces,' or ' utterly annihilated,' as 



NOTES FBOM THE 'NEWS.' 97 

the historians phrase it. The general average, as has 
been said of ' killed ' was but five per cent. ; and of 
wounded — i.e., 'hit,' perhaps twenty per cent. A 
father who wishes the days of his soldier son to be 
long in the land, might give him a few words of good 
advice — 'Never run away; it is not only disgraceful, 
but dangerous. It is a popular error to suppose that 
the rear is a safe place. Choose the main body. As 
for the van-guard, a lad of your sense will, of course, 
avoid that. The Van is only another name for the 
Ambulance.' 



The chorister boys in a Western cathedral have 
been getting into trouble for what in theatrical circles 
is called 4 gagging ' — singing things that are not in the 
programme. I have always pitied these poor little fel- 
lows. The duties that sometimes get to be mechanical 
with persons much more elevated in the ecclesiastical 
profession than they are must be more liable to become 
so in their case. Even choristers are doubtless decorous 
and respectable now; but Thomas Ingoldsby used to 
aver that he once heard the white-robed youths at St. 
Paul's in his time perform the following ' voluntary ' 
(that is not the right name for it, but it ought to be), 
with all the rhythmical exactness proper to the words 
they should have used : 4 Oh, lawk ! here's a precious 
lark ! The soot has fallen down the chimney and 
spoilt the Sunday's mutton ! Never mind ! Wipe it 
dry with a towel, and nobody will find it out.' The 
worthy Canon was not favorable to young people taking 
up with what he thought, perhaps, too automatic a pro- 
fession of religion. In one of his poems he describes 
indeed, the acolyte tenderly enough ; but what he is 

7 



98 NOTES FBOM THE 'NEWS. 1 

doing is 'swinging his incense and making a smell.' For 
my part, I have pitied the Chorister every since my 
Eton days. Boys were then just getting to be respect- 
able, but it was a long road, and I remember some of us 
used to give him nuts just before chapel, to spoil his 
high notes. 



At a ' scratch ' sale of very ancient furniture a 
secret drawer with a false bottom has lately been discov- 
ered, I read, in an old bureau, with a thousand guineas in 
it, packed tightly edgeways. That is a circumstance 
which, I think, if it had happened to most people, would 
not have been communicated by them to the papers. 
There is a dreadful story told of a person who, wishing 
to test the honesty of his fellow-creatures, took his place 
in an omnibus next to the conductor, and after good- 
naturedly passing the silver of the passengers into his 
hand, returned them in every case a penny too much. 
The result of his experience is too painful to describe in 
detail ; suffice it to say that nobody told him of his 
error. This was very mean of those 'bus people. They 
were penny wise; but who envies such wisdom? Be- 
sides, they were cheating somebody, though it was only 
a public company (which, of course, makes a great 
difference). But a thousand guineas, belonging to some- 
body unknown that had died centuries ago, is a very dif- 
ferent matter. I could never, I am sure, bring myself 
to keep them ; for what would be the good of that? I 
think I should change them — gradually — into current 
coin, and spend it in doing good. The original owner 
would, probably, have belonged to the ancient faith ; 
perhaps one ought to have Masses said for the repose 
of his soul? On the other hand he might have been a 



NOTES FBOM THE l NEWS: 99 

Lollard. The whole subject of giving things away is 
surrounded with difficulties. Most of the money, of 
course, I should spend in charity ; and, if there was a 
little over, after all, who would grudge it me for all my 
thought and trouble in the matter ? That is how I think 
it would work out in my case. What would you do, 
gentle reader ? 



It cannot be too often stated that the present tendency 
of Londoners of moderate means, to rush away alto- 
gether in the same two months is as foolish as it is un- 
economical. In June and July the country is quite as 
delightful as in August and September ; accommoda- 
tion is much more plentiful, and not nearly so expen- 
sive ; and there is a much better supply of provisions. 
It is, moreover, much easier for comparatively humble 
persons to take their holidays at that earlier period, 
since their betters prefer the autumn, for their exodus, 
to the summer. The only reason that is urged against 
it is that there is ' nobody in town ' when one comes back ; 
and this circumstance would, of course, be altered if 
the time of departure and return were spread, as it 
should be, over a greater space. At all events, families 
who like one another's society could so arrange matters. 
The real truth is, no doubt, that — speaking generally — 
we are very gregarious, and enjoy our pleasures most 
among a host of our fellow-creatures. ' The average 
man,' as Matthew Arnold called him, has his attrac- 
tions to a good many people, and when ' he comes in 
his thousands ' is irresistible to them. Still, there may 
be a leaven — and more than eleven — of quiet folk to 
whom these words of advice may seem worth taking. 



100 N TES FROM THE SE H 

Thz se ns :ve plant has inspired the most beautiful 
poem tV. : was ever addressed to a flower: otherwise, 
it has not hitherto been much thought of : but every 

K — and dc --: se — has its dav. and it is now the turn 
of the Mimosa pudica for being appreciated. A partic- 
ular variety of it is being exhibited i:i Vienna which 
claims be foretell storms ; id earthquakes for forty- 
eight hours in advance of their occurrence, and this 
circumstance has natural icted public attention to 

it. It is very seldom that Botany gets a hearing. A 

tain professor of my acquaintance, of whom, as of 
Wheweli. it could have been said that * Science was 
his forte, and Omniscience his weakness.* once ob- 
served : ■ I am not a conceited man. but I'm hanged if 
I don't know everything except botany." He thought 
it beneath his attention: but:: at the 

: e plant at le - ery noteworthy. Sir Hans 

Sloane mentions a variety of it which he calls ■ sensible 
grass.* on which a i puff of wind from your mouth,* or, 
in other words, talking to it. • wi'l make an impres- 
sion.* Man. we are told, is grass, but not ofte:: 
sc sible as this: you may talk to him for a month 
without effecting anvthincr of the kind. In Central 
America the sensitive plant grows to some height, and 
vrhen approached salutes those who retire under its 
shade * ; but under the veil of politeness it also plays 
the eavesdropper, and ■ inclines its leaves to those who 
converse near it.' This is not the only example of one 
who is very delicate and impressionable being also 
redingly mean. A well-informed correspondent of 
an evening paper cites the case of an S. P. so actually 
sensitive that 'being carried about for some time in 
the carriage of a French so. susceptibility 



NOTK8 FROM THE SEWS: 101 

quite destroyed ' ; but that I should think would 
happen to almost anybody. The Vienna plant would, 
of course, be most appreciated where earthquakes 
were ordinary visitations : in such places it would Le 
invaluable as a * button-hole ' at evening parties. 4 1 
am very sorry." one would say to one's hostess, when 
the entertainment palled, 'but my mimosa (which 
never deceives me) says •* Earthquake ! " You know 
how easily shocked my poor mother [or whoever it 
may be] is by little things of that kind : I must be off 
home." 



A gbhtlbmab has been complaining to the papers 
because a young lady (not his wife) was debarred access 
to the railway platform from which he was * taking his 
departure for an indefinite period.' The wicket keeper 
(usurping the office of the bowler) ■ blocked * her. She 
appealed to him with tears and tender reproaches — 

• What ? may I not say one word of farewell to my dear 

one before he goe< : South America, or perhaps 

only to Southend. But he merely replied. 4 Show your 
ticket. Miss.* She had nothing to show except her ob- 
vious affection for one unknown to him. and that was 
of no avail. A common scene, no doubt, enough 
(indeed, as the official might have pleaded in his turn. 

* If everyone is to be let in as wan: od bye/* 
what would be the good of our by I . but one 
which has never been described, that I am aware of, 
by the poets. The nearest approach to it is to be found 
in Moore. The Peri in that case. too. is on the wrong 
side of the wicket, and offers all sorts of ridiculous 
bribes to be let in ? but the janitor is equally firm, un- 

e produces (if I remember right) the tear of some 



102 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

penitent criminal. The young lady at the railway-sta- 
tion never thought of this (or, perhaps, had not such 
a thing in her possession) ; if her own tears failed to 
move the man, she naturally enough distrusted the 
effect of anyone else's tears. If had been in her place 
I should have tried a shilling ; but my mind, as the re- 
viewers tell me, is prosaic. If she objected, on princi- 
ple, to bribery, she might for the shilling have bought 
a railway-ticket to the next station, and got in to her 
Eden that way. Perhaps the poor maiden did not pos- 
sess a shilling, in which case I pity her very much. 
But I confess I don't pity her young man. The pref- 
erence of our 'Arries for making love in public, on 
Bank holidays and similar occasions, instead of select- 
ing some secluded spot, has lately been severely and 
justly commented upon. And surely the same objec- 
tion is to be' urged against leave-takings at railway-sta- 
tions. Why should we exhibit the tenderest emotions 
of the human heart to the lamp-cleaner, the foot-warmer 
porter, and the newsboy ? Are there not places more 
suitable for farewells than the platform ? Is not the 
refreshment-room available, or, if melancholy surround- 
ings are essential, is there not the waiting-room? Nay 
if you insist upon saying 'good-bye ' after leaving home 
(which I still venture to think is the proper place for 
it), is there not the four-wheeled cab ? ' Breathe on 
the windows,' and, as I am assured (for I protest I never 
tried it), a temporary seclusion is obtained scarcely in- 
ferior to that afforded by blinds. 



The poor literary folk are just now, as usual, being 
held up to public reprobation for their extravagance in 
expenditure, and for inadequately insuring their lives. 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEIVS.' 103 

There is no more fertile theme for the moralist to ex- 
patiate upon. 'These writing fellows are surely not 
so thoughtless,' he says, ' as not to be aware that they 
must die.' They are quite aware of that, but also, 
unfortunately, that they are liable to fall ill or grow 
old, in which case they may have no money to pay their 
premiums. This is a reflection which does not occur to 
the moralist, who has generally a good balance at his 
bankers', but it is one that the author must needs take 
into consideration. As for extravagance, there is nothing 
so easy to 'live up to' (as the aesthetic people call it) 
as a small income, which is what most authors have to 
make shift with. The gentleman who has been making 
it his business to inquire into the private affairs of the 
professors of literature is so shocked at their disinclina- 
tion to look the future in the face that one cannot help 
having a suspicion that he is connected with Life Insur- 
ance by stronger bonds than those of sentiment. He 
shows not the least desire to pay our premiums. A 
sermon was once preached in a country village for the 
benefit of certain farmers who had suffered heavily 
from incendiary fires. A well-dressed stranger, in 
answer to an eloquent appeal to his benevolence, 
dropped into the collection box what the preacher 
fondly hoped was a check for a large amount. It was, 
however, only a piece of valuable advice — ' Let them 
insure as they wish to be saved.' It is needless to add 
what was his calling. The improvidence of journalists, 
critics, and reviewers in this matter is, we read, even 
greater than that of authors. The New York Press 
Club ' is called upon with increasing frequency to stand 
the expense of burying impecunious journalists.' The 
poor are always willing to help the poor ; sometimes 



104 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

they are even eager for it. Nothing would give me 
greater pleasure — I mean, so far as my humble means 
will admit I shall be always happy to subscribe towards 
burying a critic. 



What is it that makes 4 Boards ' so wooden, so des- 
titute of human feeling ? or do they begin with being 
wooden and derive their name from their material? 
The late action of a provincial Burial Board in taking 
away the glass case of flowers which a poor man had 
placed upon his daughter's tomb is unintelligible on 
any other ground ; no man would have done it, nor 
any body of men that was not a Board. In purchas- 
ing the grave, it appears that the father did not pur- 
chase the legal right of putting flowers on it ; yet 
surely it is the flowers that sanctify the grave? The 
glass case may not have been very appropriate ; but in 
these matters the very want of appropriateness is often 
touching. There is nothing more common in the 
cemeteries of the poor than to see sea-shells placed 
upon the graves of those who had never been to sea; 
they are the only permanent record of piety within the 
means of the mourners, and are not, after all, more out 
of keeping with him who rests below than an angel 
insufficiently clothed, or one of those marble beasts to 
be bought in the Euston Road, supposed to be symbolic 
of human virtue. When I was a boy, I used to think 
it a recreation to wander among the tombs in Kensal 
Green ; but they are much thicker on the ground than 
they used to be, and it is difficult to find one's old 
favorites ; moreover, some who were my companions 
are lying there, which makes a difference. There 
used to be a picture of a beautiful child on one of the 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 105 

graves with the affecting inscription : ' Is it well with 
the child? It is well.' (1 wonder what the provin- 
cial Burial Board would have said to that .?) Got an 
' injunction,' perhaps, to remove it.) Some of the 
epitaphs were, on the other hand, unintentionally 
humorous. I remember one on the west side of the 
cemetery, near the entrance, over a Frenchman : 
' Suffocated in a London fog.' One poor fellow had 
no epitaph, nor apparently any surviving friend; his 
name stood out amid the multitude of sorrowing adjec- 
tives — 'beloved,' 'respected,' 'deplored,' etc. — with 
pathetic blankness : ' Captain Somebody, Unattached. y 
Perhaps the wittiest epitaph ever written (but it is not 
to be found in Kensal Green) was that composed on 
the heir of the Due de Penthievre, who died of love 
for Mademoiselle Mire, the musician ; it was composed 
of the five musical notes, 'MI, RE, L'A, MI, LA,' 
which were made a double debt to pay : ' Mire has 
placed him there.' 



Alexandre Dumas has just been made Commander 
of the Legion of Honor for his ' distinction in litera- 
ture ; ' but he doesn't like Emile Zola being made a 
Knight of it for a similar reason. In France, it 
appears, there is some literary jealousy among novel- 
ists. In England we have nothing of the sort. Sir 
William Black does not turn up his nose at Sir Walter 
Besant, nor Sir Richard Blackmore at Sir George 
Meredith. They enjoy the titles conferred upon them 
by a grateful country without being envious of one 
another. It is understood that they have had much 
higher honors offered to them, but have declined them 
on the ground that they already 'sit among their 



106 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

peers.' It is only lately that men of letters have been 
4 decorated ' in France, unless being published in an 
edition de luxe, with illustrations, can be so considered ; 
but, even when admission to the Academy was their 
only reward, they showed their teeth at one another, 
and — when they were not admitted — at the Academy. 
Everyone remembers Piron's epitaph, written by him- 
self : 

Ci-git Piron, qui ne fut rien 
Pas-meme Academicien. 

Much later Vige'e wrote to the Journal des Debats : 
4 Sir, — 111, in pain, and feeling my end approach, I 
have thought it right to make my epitaph in order to 
spare my friends the trouble, and, above all, the 
embarrassment, of making it for me. Have the good- 
ness, I beg, to give it a place in your paper. It is not 
very poetical, but, if my extreme age has not destroyed 
my judgment, I think it has, at least, common sense : 

Here lies a poor poet ; his verses were flat ; 
And yet he the Institute missed for all that.' 



From Russia — of all places to hear of ready money ! 
— comes one those rumors of buried treasure which, if 
it does not turn the i sluggard's blood to flame,' has 
power at least to quicken his pulse. To become rich 
unexpectedly, and on a sudden, is always an excite- 
ment, but still more so when the wealth comes from 
some source a very long way off and unconnected with 
ourselves. A crock full of old gold coins, found in 
one's back garden, is welcome to everybody, whether 
they are numismatists or not ; and even the stories of 
such discoveries have a charm for us all. In this par- 



NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 107 

ticular case the treasure — which, by-the-by, is not found 
yet — is only three-quarters of a century old, but full of 
dramatic interest. It is a chest containing £ 34,000 in 
bullion, which, when its convoy in the Retreat from 
Moscow was pursued by the Russians, was buried, as 
certain documents declare, by the roadside near Grodno. 
A Frenchman, the grandson of the sole survivor — the 
whole detachment having been cut to pieces but him- 
self — has found the narrative among the manuscript 
4 tales of his grandfather,' and laid it before the Russian 
Government, who have promised him a third of what 
he finds. I wish he may get it, and that, if he does, 
it may not be paid to him in rouble notes. 



This is the sort of money that is described in the 
histories as ' blood and treasure ' ; what a lot of it 
there must be underground, if one did but know 
where to look for it ! Perhaps the richest and 
oldest lost treasure in the world, and also the one 
invested with the greatest interest, is the Urim and 
Thummim, the sparkling of whose jewels is supposed 
to have manifested the presence of the Highest — 
though Josephus tells us that this property became 
extinct (through the degeneracy of the age) two 
centuries before his time. Those jewels, as the late 
Mr. King, the great authority on precious stones, 
tells us, are absolutely indestructible, and must exist 
somewhere. No lapse of time can produce any visible 
effect upon them— indeed, the tablets bearing the title 
of Thothmes III., the contemporary of Moses, are still 
in existence, though they are of a far softer material; 
nor can they shine unrecognized among the State 
jewels of their captors, for their inscriptions must 



108 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWSS 

needs remain unchanged. We know that the breast- 
plate described by Josephus was carried to Rome after 
the destruction of the Holy City by Titus, and, after 
that, we lose sight of it. There are three stories of 
the subsequent fate of these jewels: I. That they 
were sent off: by Genseric to Carthage upon the sack 
of Rome. II. That the reason why the Franks, in the 
sixth century, pressed the siege of Narbonne was 
because this precious 4 loot ' was reported to have been 
sent thither by Alaric. III. That they were returned 
by Justinian to the Holy City, where they fell into 
the hands of Chosroes, the Persian, in 615. When he 
sacked the city he no doubt ' sacked ' them, and Mr. 
King's conclusion is that they now lie buried in some 
unknown Persian treasure-chamber, to have a chance 
of emerging from oblivion at the hands of some modern 
explorer. I have no turn for exploration myself, but 
I should like some enterprising friend to find these 
jewels, and give them to me, as a token of esteem 
and regard, upon my birthday (or, indeed, any day), 
very much. 



Mr. Frederic Harrison has been bringing his 
heavy guns to bear from the deck of the Nineteenth 
Century against the light bark of Fiction. This literary 
Nero seems never so well pleased as when breaking 
butterflies upon the wheel. It is, of course, impossible 
for a poor novelist to return his fire ; but I can tell him 
a story illustrative of the danger of cultured persons 
dictating to the unlearned. A man of letters, not un- 
known to him, came up to London at seventeen years 
of age, with the usual half-crown in his pocket, and all 
the proper intentions — ' honorable but remote ' — of 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 109 

regenerating his. species. On the second day of his 
arrival, he passed, in an obscure part of the town, a 
shop with ' Jones, Tobaconist,' written over it. His 
literary sense was shocked ; his ardor to set a fellow- 
creature right — always ready laid, like a housemaid's 
fire — burnt high within him. 4 It is surely my duty,' he 
murmured to himself, ' to tell this person that his trade 
is spelt with two c's.' Tobacco always made him ill 
(though scarcely more so than to see it printed in this 
fashion), so that he had no excuse for entering the shop 
as a purchaser. He entered it in the character of an 
elevator of the human race, and the instant he had 
done so, and caught sight of the person to be elevated, 
he felt that he had made a mistake. The tobacconist, 
a huge and hairy man, was sitting behind the counter 
in his shirt sleeves, reading a democratic newspaper 
and smoking a short black pipe. The modest though 
intellectual appearance of the literary youth did not 
impress him favorably ; the sale of a penny Pickwick 
was probably the best business he looked to do with 
him (and even that, as we know, was a far too sanguine 
expectation). He looked carelessly over his newspaper 
without quitting it with either hand : ' Well, and what 
do you want, young shaver? ' Here was the beginning 
to a philological discussion ! The knees of the literary 
reformer, already 4 loosened with dismay,' fairly 
knocked together. 4 1 want nothing, my dear sir,' he 
stammered. 

'What?' The proprietor dropped his paper, and 
glared at him with fury. 

4 At least, not for nryself,' murmured the intruder. 

4 You'll get something for yourself before you are 
two minutes older ; what do you mean $ ' 



110 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

Nothing in Mr. Collins's ' Ode of the Passions,' my 
friend tells me, approached the emotions that were here 
depicted in that tobacconist's face. 

4 If you'll only step outside,' observed the literary 
youth, with the courage of despair, ' and give your 
attention to the very peculiar way in which the painter 
— for I am sure it was not your mistake— has spelt the 
word " tobacconist " over your ' 

The sentence was never finished. The man of letters 
assures me, though he cannot tell what exactly 
happened, that even at this distance of time (more than 
forty years ago) he has a confused recollection of over- 
whelming disaster and catastrophe. An earthquake 
and volcano (I think he must have been pelted among 
other things with boxes of vesuvians) seemed to have 
taken place simultaneously. That awful lesson, not to 
interfere with other people's business, he has never 
forgotten. Let Mr. Frederic Harrison lay it to heart. 
Wisdom, though it may die with him, did not begin 
with him. Others have written upon the same subject, 
and differed from him upon the propriety of stuffing 
the human mind like chickens. ' We do not want 
readers,' says Sydney Smith, ' for the number of readers 
seems very much on the increase, and mere readers are 
often the idlest of human beings . . . The ambition of 
a man of intelligence should not be to know books, but 
things.' 'The wisest clerks,' says Chaucer, 'are not 
the wisest men.' 'One had better never see a book,' 
says Emerson, ' than be warped by its attraction out of 
one's own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a 
system.' Mr. Harrison says it is better to dance with 
a dairymaid all night than to pass it in reading Mr. 
Mudie's novels. I see no objection to either one or 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 9 Ill 

the other amusement; and for my own part, would 
rather dance with half-a-dozen dairymaids than wade 
through six volumes of Mr. Auguste Comte. 



M. Henri De Laserre has bowed to the veto of 
the Sacred College and desisted from his work of 
Bowdlerizing the Bible for the Parisian Upper Ten 
Thousand. A small child of mine, who had observed 
the popularity of the Scriptures without quite under- 
standing its cause, once suggested to me that I should 
1 write a Bible ' ; but, for my part, I have never 
even thought of ' adapting the work to our modern 
social needs.' How men would differ in their mode of 
treatment if they took up M. de Laserre's unfinished 
task for him ! How each would leave out the denun- 
ciation of the sin he was inclined to and retain that of 
the sin he had no mind to ! In the French translation 
of the Bible, published in 1538 by command of 
Charles VIII., there are two interpolations, both in 
Exodus ; one is curious : ' The dust of the Golden 
Calf which Moses burnt and ground and strewed upon 
the water, of which he obliged the children of Israel 
to drink, soaked into the beards of those of them who 
had really worshipped it and gilded them, which 
remained upon them a special mark of their idola- 
try.' The other is less strange, but of a similar kind ; 
the reason of their being forced into the text is now 
inexplicable. 



In one of Theodore Hook's (or is it Hood's?) 
stories there is an account of two lovers walking on 
Margate Cliff, and very nearly over it, through the 
fair one's want of control of her aspirates. She keeps 



112 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

on saying 4 nearer the edge ' when she means, for she 
is very frightened, ' nearer the hedge,' and what can 
her true love do but obey her? A similar mistake 
took place, we may be sure, pretty often in reference 
to the great auk's egg^ the sale of which for so much 
money the other day formed a topic of general con- 
versation. The hawk, and the auk, being both birds, 
must have led, indeed, to even greater confusion of 
the cockney tongue. And now there will be more of 
it, for I read there is another great auk's egg i in the 
market,' though I can hear nothing of it about Leaden- 
hall. 



What is curious about this creature is its compara- 
tively recent extinction. In 1838, a Danish professor 
gave warning that in consequence of the raids made 
upon its breeding haunts, for it was good to eat, and 
also because the female (one hardly likes to call her 
4 a great auk,' it sounds so rude) only laid one egg 
each season, the species was in danger ; but even he 
did not look forward to the fact that within five years 
there would not be a single specimen of it alive. In 
America, its biographer, Mr. Symington Grieve, of 
Edinburgh, tells us, more than thirty years have 
passed since there has been even a report of its exist- 
ence, and all authenticated manifestations of it have 
ceased in both hemispheres since 1844. This is, of 
course, why the great auk's eggs have grown to be so 
valuable to the collector. There are now but sixty- 
eight and a half of them in the world (if the remains 
of the egg broken by the clumsy footman of Lord 
Garvagh, and very carefully preserved, can be called a 
half), forty-five of which are in the British Isles. In 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 113 

1833 one was bought by a Paris dealer for three 
francs ; in 1835 one at Leipsic for a guinea, and was 
sold in 1857 for £7 10s. In 1860 the price was £18. 
In the same year, according to Mr. Grieve, a curious 
incident took place, similar to the strokes of luck 
which sometimes happen to the haunters of bookstalls. 
A naturalist walking near Boulogne was offered by a 
fisherwoman some guillemot's eggs, which she said she 
had at home; he went to her cottage, and found 
among them a great auk's egg, which he bought for 
two francs, and sold at Stevens' for £26. In 1865 
four were sold in London at an average of £32 apiece. 
These were from a box found, Professor Newton tells 
us, in the College of Surgeons, simply ticketed ' Pen- 
guin's Eggs,' and containing ten of these costly curiosi- 
ties; but 4 when or how they came into the possession 
of the college there was no record.* In 1869 the price 
rose to £64. In 1880, at Dowell's auction-rooms, in 
Edinburgh, a 4 job lot' of eggs was bought comprising 
two of the great auk, for £1 12s., which were sold 
two months afterwards, at Stevens', for £100 and 
£107, respectively.- It is, therefore, by no means 
wonderful that the price of these rarities should be 
now 120 guineas, which, I believe, is the last quotation. 
There is one great advantage enjoyed by the possessors 
of these golden eggs — they can never be tempted to 
kill the bird that lays them. 



Our actors are being interrogated as to how near to 
the heel of reality comes the toe of their imitation ; 
and especially whether their feigned tears are 4 real 
water,' such as the advertisements of Sadler's Wells 
used to boast of. Even the boldest of them dare not 

8 



114 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWSS 

say what Baron, the great French player, used to 
aver : that he could change color at pleasure. After 
his return to the stage, at nearly seventy years of age, 
he acted Cinna, and it is recorded of him, by credible 
witnesses, that at the line : 

Leur fronts palir d'horreur et rougir de colere 
he turned pale and red, as conformity with the verse 
required. He affirmed, and doubtless with truth, that 
4 the force and play of declamation ' with him was 
such, that 4 tender and plaintive sounds might be 
transferred to gay, and even comic, words, and still be 
productive of tears.' The story is well known how 
Garrick, in Paris, complimented Preville upon his act- 
ing the part of a drunken man, except that he didn't 
make his legs drunk — a nicety of detail which he at 
once proceeded to exhibit, to the French actor's gener- 
ous admiration. 



It is not generally understood that almost all the 
modern appliances for the safety of a theatrical 
audience were known, if not put in practice, nearly a 
hundred years ago. In an epilogue, written by George 
Colman the younger, to ' The Virgin Unmasked,' Miss 
Farren (afterwards Countess of Derby) was made to 
speak as follows at the opening of Drury Lane, in 
April, 1794 : 

The very ravages of fire we scout, 

For we have wherewithal to put it out; 

In ample reservoirs our firm reliance, 

Whose streams set conflagrations at defiance. 

Panic alone avoid; let none begin it: 

Should the flames spread, sit still: there's nothing in it. 

We'll undertake to drown you in a minute. 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' U5 

Behold, obedient to the prompter's bell, 
Our tide shall flow, and real waters swell. 
No river of meandering paste-board made; 
No gentle tinkling of a tin cascade ; 
No brook of broadcloth shall be set in motion ; 
No ships be wrecked upon a wooden ocean. 
But the pure element its course shall hold, 
Kush on the scene, and o'er the stage be rolled. 
Consume the scenes, your safety still is certain: 
Presto ! for proof let down the iron curtain ! 



Among the many subjects about which eminent per- 
sonages are now induced by enterprising editors to give 
their opinions, the most popular, as might be expected, 
is the ' secret of success in life.' There is not much 
doubt, I fear, in the mind of most of them, as to what 
success consists in ; though they drape it more deco- 
rously than the ordinary apostles of Self-help, the most 
brilliant examples of whose teaching come to London 
on foot with half-a-crown in their pocket, and are 
eventually taken by four horses to a mausoleum of 
marble, on which, by some strange forgetful ness, their 
chief merit — the sum they died worth — is omitted from 
the long record of' their virtues. There is at least 
some honesty in these receipts for prosperity, and 
more good sense than is generally supposed; for, while 
great wealth is a snare, the acquisition of a competence 
is very desirable, even from the moral point of view. 
That sworn enemy of cant and humbug, Sydney 
Smith, averred he was a better man for every guinea 
that was added to his income ; and though the philoso- 
phers recommend to other people ' the root and the 
spring,' I notice that, with a noble unselfishness, they 
are apt to put up with diet far less wholesome - but 
nicer. Success in life is not prosperity, but still less is 



116 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

it the absence of it. The Preacher, of course, is right 
when he tells us it does not consist in wealth or 
honors, but in ' a soul filled with good ' ; but this is as 
seldom found in the workhouse as in the palace. Suc- 
cess, we may take it for granted, includes, at all 
events, the ordinary comforts of life. The son of 
Jakeh (otherwise unknown) has pronounced with 
great authority upon this matter, in favor of the via 
media. There is a row of houses in a Hampshire 
town called ' Agur's Buildings.' When the good man 
who had run them up was asked why he had given 
them so strange a name, he answered : ' Well, it was 
this way. Agur's prayer, you know, was neither for 
riches nor poverty ; and these houses are meant for a 
middling class of people.' 

In teaching us ' How to attain success in life,' it 
would be interesting if those who have accomplished 
that object would tell us frankly whether the game is 
worth the candle. That 'nothing succeeds like suc- 
cess ' we all know ; but that is only the view of 
the outsider. There are a good many drawbacks to 
winning the game of life. The losers are very numer- 
ous, and a good many of them do not know how 'to 
pay and look pleasant,' but become the enemies of the 
victor; even the lookers-on resent what they call his 
luck. There is not a man who has achieved a great 
success in any walk of life who is not a target for the 
calumny of knaves and the gossip of fools. We have 
it 'on the best authority' that he has broken the 
heart of his mother, robbed his sisters, starved his wife, 
and fully deserves to be suffering from that disease, 
hitherto unknown to the human frame, for which, ' as 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 117 

everybody knows,' the Faculty are in vain attending 
him. For him, too, there is no peace, even in the 
grave ; for are there not the biographers ? 

Who make it seem more sweet to be 
The little life of bank and brier, 
The bird that pipes his lone desire, 

And dies, unheard, within his tree, 

Than he that warbles long and loud, 
And drops at Glory's temple-gates, 
For whom the carrion vulture waits 

To tear his heart before the crowd. 



An artificial flower, I read, has been patented, which 
in its stalk contains a powder emitting precisely the 
same perfume that its blossom possesses in nature. 
This is certainly an advance in luxury; for though we 
can purchase many agreeable scents, they have seldom 
much likeness to those they are supposed to resemble. 
It will scarcely be contended, for example, that violet 
powder smells of violets, as emery powder smells of 
emery. It is strange that only the scent of flowers 
should be imitated, when there are so many other 
objects that give pleasant and powerful odors. How 
nice it would be to have the scent of Russia leather for 
instance, presented to us at will, or that delicious and 
refreshing odor we call ' the smell of the sea ! ' I feel 
sure indeed, with regard to the latter, that science is 
still in its infancy, and that some day we shall have 
atmospheres of all kinds, if not on draught, in bottle. 
How nice it would be to uncork a quart of concen- 
trated Brighton or Scarborough air, and fill our 
London breakfast-room with it, instead of having to 
take a hateful railway journey to drink it, as it were, 
4 on the premises.' When this comes to pass, people 



118 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

will remember the intelligence which predicted it, and 
exclaim, 'Let us give him a statue!' But 1 should 
prefer something less costly — a bust, or half the price 
of a bust, presented to me immediately. 



Some of my countrymen have been shocked to read 
how the sympathies of the whole Spanish nation are 
being wasted upon the popular bull-fighter, Frascuelo, 
who has been tossed in the ring (and serve him 
right! ). But the late revival of prize-fighting among 
ourselves does not indicate a much more wholesome 
public opinion. The attraction of novelty may be 
some excuse for it, but to those who remember what 
the old prize ring was, it seems an evil sign. Its 
so-called patrons were the scum of the aristocracy, and 
its habitual frequenters the dregs of the people. 
They were actuated by the motive some foolish folk 
attributed to them, of encouraging British pluck, 
hardihood, and the physical virtues, about as much — I 
do not say as the owner of race-horses, though Admiral 
Rous has left it on record that no owner he ever knew 
had any other object than that of making money — but 
as the welsher is by that of * keeping up the breed of 
horses.' Their sole object was to win their bets, and 
the pleasure of seeing their fellow-creatures rendered 
unrecognizable by lumps and bumps was quite a 
secondary matter. It was but rarely that the best 
man won j but it is not" to be denied that, where the 
fight was not sold beforehand, much 4 gameness' was 
exhibited. 

There is an off-quoted story connected with Brough- 
ton, the prize-fighter, and the Duke of Cumberland, 
his backer. The gladiator, was on one occasion, from 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 119 

obvious reasons (though he himself could not see 
them), unable to come up to time. ' You are beat, 
sir,' cried his patron irascibly. ' No, not beat, your 
Royal Highness ; but only blind. Let me be put 
within fighting distance.' I hope we are not going to 
see the ' good old times,' of which this anecdote is so 
significant an illustration, revived again. 



A generation or two ago — for people live so long 
now that it is scarcely worth while to particularize 
such matters — one of the most popular songs in Eng- 
land was 'The Old Arm-Chair.' 'Who shall dare,' 
inquired the poetess, 'to chide me for loving that 
old arm-chair ? ' and I am not aware that anyone took 
up the challenge. For myself, I have never fallen in 
love with any article of furniture ; but the throne-chair 
of Queen Hatasu (late, or, at least, formerly of 
Egypt), just presented to the British Museum, seems 
to have considerable claims to veneration. It is 
beyond doubt, the oldest chair in the world, the date 
of Her Majesty's dynasty being 1600 B.C. I wonder 
whether it was ever mended ! Did its legs never 
'give'? Did no one ever sit the bottom out, like 
little Silver-hair in the fairy story ? I see arm-chairs 
in the Tottenham Court Road outside the shops 
ticketed ' everlasting ' ; but ' who shall dare ' warrant 
any one of them to last for 3,487 years? 



A writer on ladies' clubs, in a magazine this month, 
has made us wish for more. She has confined herself 
too much to the material aspects of the subject, which, 
I am glad to read, are encouraging. It seems hard, 
indeed, that ladies should have nowhere to go for a 



120 NOTES FROM THE 'N.EWSS 

modest lunch in London, except that depressing back 
parlor at the pastrycook's, while their male relatives 
have a Meeting-House (though not exactly a" Zion), 
which, compared with their own houses, is to many of 
the in a palace. I am all for the ladies in this matter, 
as in all others ; but I want to know what they do in 
their clubs. About this, in the article in question, 
there is (as Bradshaw sometimes complains) 4 no infor- 
mation.' What men tell one about ladies' clubs is, of 
course, utterly untrustworthy. In those to which gen- 
tlemen are not admitted, they affirm, the members are 
bored to death. I am too old to dress in girl's clothes 
and ascertain this for myself. I should be found out 
in a moment. But I want to know. Where gentle- 
men and ladies are both admitted, men hint that, sooner 
or later, some lady — to borrow the charmingly exclusive 
phrase of one of the prospectuses — ' who has been, 
or would probably be, precluded from attending her 
Majesty's Drawing-rooms,' is sure to get in, and then 
there is a row. I don't believe one word of this. I 
have been occasionally a guest in one of these admirable 
institutions, and if there was a fault to be found with 
it, it was its stupendous respectability. It was like go- 
ing to church (as I often do) on a week day. The 
men were few and not gay — certainly not gay Lotharios : 
they gave me the impression of being there on suffer- 
ance, and slightly but distinctly sat upon. What is 
wanted is some female Michael Angelo Titmarsh to 
describe life at a lady's club. Does one lady monopolize 
all the papers, and another the fire, standing with her 
back to it, as Brown and Jones do in our clubs ? Do 
they steal one another's parasols ? Do they abuse the 
waitresses? Do they play whist in the afternoons? 






NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 121 

Is there a billiard-room ? Is there a smo No, of 

course there isn't ; but this total absence of information 
makes one suspect things. They had much better tell 
us what really does happen. 



4 Vivat Rex,' which used to be the motto of the 
Cornish folk, seems to be now adopted in the Baltic. 
The Novosti informs us that not only have false light- 
houses been erected on its coast, but even harbors with 
false light-houses. This is an unlooked-for develop- 
ment of that Russian civilization of which we hear so 
much. The proverb, 4 Any port in a storm,' must now 
have the reservation, 'except in the Gulf of Finland,' 
which is the scene of these deceptive havens. In 
days when a Czar was not afraid to travel in his own 
dominions, it was a happy thought of his courtiers to 
4 run up ' model villages, full of ' happy countrymen," 
to greet his eyes, and assure him of the general pros- 
perity of the people under his paternal rule. The 
downward path of duplicity is easy; if sham villages, 
says the Russian, why not sham light-houses ? In the 
latter case, moreover, there is much more to be got by 
it. The wreckers will not be the only gainers by this 
device, but (though the wretches never thought of 
that) Romance also. It is wrong to think of ' copy ' in 
the presence of such flagrant immorality, but what a 
splendid finale is thus suggested for a sea story ! A 
ship full of scoundrels, and their wicked gains, is 
caught in a tempest ; all seems lost ; when suddenly 
the harbor lights appear ; repentance vanishes, suc- 
ceeded by insolent triumph ; each promises himself a 
life of voluptuous ease ; then, quite unexpectedly, the 
whole concern (put in maritime language) goes to 



122 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

pieces. I make a present of this excellent idea to Mr. 
Clark Russell. 



A remarkable public dinner was given the other 
day in Paris, from which we may with advantage take 
a lesson. There was not, perhaps, quite so much con- 
versation as is desirable — indeed, for Frenchmen ; the 
company were unusually taciturn. Even the toasts 
were drunk in silence, as though they had been a trib- 
ute to somebody's memory ; this may be thought to be 
carrying a virtue a little too far ; but, on the other 
hand, there was no speechifying. Think of a public 
dinner without the tediousness of public speaking! 
All seemed to have enjoyed themselves immensely, 
and interchanged their sentiments, both at table and 
afterwards, without that confused babble which so 
often accompanies similar entertainments. If a disa- 
greeable remark came to the tip of the tongue, in no 
case did it get any farther. 4 How,' one may well ask, 
4 was all this accomplished ? ' The guests were deaf- 
mutes; they proved themselves good trenchermen, but 
the sentiment of the evening (there were no songs) 
was 'Fingers were made before forks!' The enter- 
tainment was so successful that next year it will be 
made an international one. Diversity of language 
will be no obstacle, for deaf-mutes have a Volapiik all 
their own. 



The council of the Birmingham Institute has been 
writing to our authors for the original MSS. of their 
works, ' to add attractions to their annual conver- 
sazione.' The answers they have received are very 
illustrative of the modesty that belongs to the literary 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 123 

character. The author of ' Lorna Doone ' ' does not 
know whether he has got the MS. of it or not.' The 
author of ' Vice Versa' 'knows, but does not like to 
say ' (it was stolen from him, as I happen to know, by 
a literary admirer, and he is unwilling to expose him). 
Mr. Justin McCarthy never had a MS.; he composes 
his works on the type-writer at first hand, like a musi- 
cian. Only one author seems to be at all impressed with 
the value of his MS., and even that can be accounted 
for from the circumstance that he has long labored 
under a most unfounded imputation of getting other 
people to write his books for him. So careless, it is 
rumored, was one of these geniuses of the treasure 
demanded of him that he placed all his MSS. at the 
disposal of the Institute, upon the understanding that 
it should undertake to let him know which was which : 
a detail that he had been unable to gather from his 
own handwriting. Again and again have his friends 
implored this gentleman to take 4 twelve lessons in 
caligraphy for a guinea,' and even offered to pay for 
them, but he says 'No; no check of mine has yet 
ever been dishonored, and it is certain that if my sig- 
nature became at all like my name, my banker would 
decline to pay it.' The only person I have ever read 
of who can match this gentleman is that correspondent 
of Bishop Barrington, who wrote, ' Out of respect to 
you I write in my own hand ; but to facilitate the 
reading, I send you a copy made by my amanuensis.' 



An interesting discussion has been lately carried on 
in the newspapers respecting ' luck.' It is a question, 
however, which will never be settled. All the scien- 
tific people scoff at its existence ; all gamblers and 



124 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

speculative persons believe in it. There is certainly- 
more to be said for it than the belief in ghosts, for 
there are many examples of it at first-hand. There 
are few of us who do not know somebody who is 
exceptionally fortunate or the reverse. It is certainly 
not true that ' we count our hits, but not our misses ' ; 
for some men are eloquent upon their misfortunes, 
though, perhaps, with the object of calling attention 
to them 'in the proper quarter,' and getting the bal- 
ance redressed. It is sometimes redressed the other 
way: I have observed men to be remarkably lucky in 
their youth, against whom the average is restored with 
a vengeance as they grow old. It is idle to assert that 
men have all the like chances ; there is no flood-time 
to fortune with some, and no ebb-tide with others. 
Occasionally some unfortunate fellow gets a piece of 
good luck the size of which makes amends for a life- 
time of ill-treatment ; but this is very rare. 



De Quincey — himself certainly an unlucky man — 
thus speaks of one to whom the cup of life had been 
dealt in quite another measure, namely, Wordsworth. 
He numbers six separate examples of his good-luck — 
4 Six instances of pecuniary showers emptying them- 
selves into Wordsworth's very bosom, at the very 
moment when they began to be needed ; and amidst 
the tumults of chance, wearing as much the air of pur- 
pose and design as if they supported a human plan.' 
He goes on to say that if a seventh had been required, 
it would have happened to him. 4 As Wordsworth 
needed a place or a fortune, the holder of that place or 
fortune was immediately served with a summons to 
surrender it; and had J known of any peculiar adap- 



NOTES FROM THE l JSTEWS: 125 

tation in an estate or office of mine to an existing need, 
of Wordsworth's — forthwith and with the speed of a 
man running for his life, I would have laid it down at 
his feet. " Take it," I should have said, " take it, or 
in three weeks I shall be a dead man." ' 



Perhaps the prettiest story connected with luck is 
that of the poor French country girl who (in the year 
before the revolution) gained a £ 1,500 prize in the 
Paris lottery. .She instantly placed 200 louis d'or in the 
hand of her parish priest to be bestowed upon the in- 
digent and deserving of her own class — c For Fortune 
surely could only have been kind to me,' she said, 'in 
order that I might be kind to others.' The instinct 
consequent upon a stroke of good-luck is generally 
benevolent, but only too often evanescent. That is 
why I say, ' Put up your hospital boxes at Epsom and 
Newmarket,' which I cannot persuade the patrons of 
charities to do. 



One of Dickens's Scrooge-like characters informs us 
that there is no such thing as a broken heart ; and 
science, it appears, endorses that unsentimental state- 
ment. * It is only,' says a medical journal of last week, 
4 people of whose education physiology has formed no 
part, who can talk of such a thing. If it happens at all, 
it would be immediately fatal ; but there seems a doubt 
whether it ever did happen, except to one old woman in 
the Liverpool Workhouse, and even then it was called 
4 a rupture.' If produced by any emotion of the mind, 
it would be a joyful one, which would i accelerate the 
circulation and increase the blood-pressure.' This is 
bad news for the novelist, and not only throws the 



126 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

gravest doubt upon the cause of death of half the 
heroines of fiction, but suggests their having departed 
in the highest spirits. 

An American critic is very angry with Mr. Browning 

because that gentleman's poetry is unintelligible to him. 

Mr. Browning might use the retort of another great 

poet and reply, that ' the clearest handwriting is not 

decipherable by twilight '; but he will probably preserve 

a dignified silence. It seems hard that a man can't write 

as he likes, since no obligation is imposed on anybody 

to read him. Mr. Browning is not the first English 

poet who has been thought to be a little obscure. Mr. 

Samuel Rogers has the reputation, if not a bard of the 

first class, of being a severely simple one, of writing 

poems 

To the purpose, 
Easy things to understand. 

And yet the following lines come from his pen : 

But hence ! away ! yon rocky cave forbear ! 

A sullen captive broods in silence there. 

There, though the dog-star flame, condemned to dwell, 

In the dark centre of its inmost cell, 

Wild winter ministers his dread control, 

To cool and crystallize the nectar' d bowl ! 

His faded form an awful grace retains ; 

Stern, though subdued, majestic yet in chains ! 

Without being informed of the fact, the reader would 
scarcely recognize in this ' sullen captive' the rough ice 
which in pre-refrigerator days, used to be stored in the 
ice-house built in every country gentleman's grounds. 
The lines occur in the first edition of the ' Epistle to a 
Friend.' 



In connection with the recent decease of a well-known 
and well-off man of letters a discussion has arisen, 



NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 127 

whether it is better for persons who follow the literary 
profession to be well off or not. The parties them- 
selves are not consulted, their opinion on the subject, 
perhaps, being taken for granted. If it is pleasant 
to cultivate letters on a little oatmeal, it is pleasanter, 
doubtless, to have a little cream and sugar to mix 
with it ; but your literary people never know what is 
good for them. On the whole, it seems concluded 
that it is better to keep them on short commons. A 
Judge — though not a very good one — has decided that 
all 'artificial advantages,' such as copyrights, should be 
denied to authors, because genius (like murder) ' will 
out,' whether it is remunerated or not. Therefore, why 
remunerate it ? To this, however, it has been replied 
that the Judge in question knows much more about 
murder than about genius. It is positively certain from 
data within reach of all, that Shakespeare would not 
have written so manv plays, nor Scott so many novels, 
without the stimulus of pecuniary rewards ; but would 
they not have written better if they had written less ? 
Some writers, again, like Johnson, would probably not 
have written at all had not Poverty been close behind 
them with her bradawl. This class, as might have been 
expected, write by fits and starts. 



The question resolves itself into three heads. First, 
is it best (for the public, of course, not the author; 
nobody cares for him) for writers to be rich ? Secondly, 
to be tolerably well off? Thirdly, to be starving? The 
first is so very rare a case as hardly to be worth con- 
sidering. Grote was rich, Rogers was rich, Beckford 
was rich ; other rich men have had a ' great turn for 
literature/ and would, no doubt (as Byron tells us of 



128 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

this class in his day), have beaten all the mere literary- 
people out of the field ; but — from motives, doubt 
less, that did as much honor to their hearts as their 
unwritten MSS. did to their heads — they have generally 
abstained from the competition. Then there is the 
starvation system — I put it second, though it comes 
third, to get it over, because it is rather an unpleasant 
subject (at all events, to me). Savage tried it, and 
Churchill tried it. Nobody who has read these authors 
can fail to observe that privation affected their tem- 
pers. Besides which, though you keep your author on 
ever so small an allowance of food, he manages some- 
how to make it up in drink. There are advantages, no 
doubt, in this treatment to one portion of the public — 
the publishers ; but to take an author's clothes away 
and lock him up in a room till he had written his epic 
poem (or whatever it was), was surely a strange method 
of 4 encouraging ' literature ! I have myself known a 
once popular and agreeable writer reduced to such 
straits that he was, while engaged in literary composi- 
tion, compelled to rock the cradle in which his young- 
est born would not repose ; but, notwithstanding what 
may be said about association — the noblest feelings of 
the paternal nature being stirred to their depths by so 
tender an occupation, and so on — I think he would 
have succeeded better with his feet unemployed and 
his mind disengaged. 

No. Looking at the matter quite dispassionately, I 
am all for No. II. (not for Number One, and far less 
for No. III.) — a moderate competence for the author. 
This would prevent the necessity for pot-boilers, and 
that tendency to be prolific, which is so truly deplor- 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 129 

able. The question is, How to confer the competence? 
Well, we have all heard (and perhaps more than once) 
that they who make the ballads for a nation are of more 
consequence to it (though they get much less) than 
they who make the laws. And how much more true is 
this — I am quite willing to take a plebiscite of readers 
upon this point — as regards the people who make the 
stories for a nation ! It is clear, therefore, that it 
would be worth while, from a national point of view, 
to endow our story-tellers — only the really good ones, 
of course — with such an annual allowance as will make 
them easy in their circumstances, or, I should rather 
say — because that is the matter with which the public 
is concerned — in their minds. As to the exact sum to 
make them 4 easy,' that, of course, would vary. Some 
people require more room, as it were, to turn about in 
than others. But, by way of experiment, I shall be 
happy to take charge of a moderate competence (paid 
quarterly), and apply it (with great delicacy and regard 
for his feelings, I need hardly say) to the case of a par- 
ticular (and particularly deserving) author I have in 
my eye, and report (after a sufficient interval — say, ten 
or a dozen years hence) how the thing works. 



I am afraid there are mischievous people who expe- 
rience a certain pleasure when they hear of the artistic 
world being taken in by some imposture or another — 
and they are rather often pleased. The sham old 
masters that have been passed off as real ones on the 
conductors of the Dresden Gallery will be quite a God- 
send to these cynics. For the Dresden Gallery has a 
very high reputation, and not to know an old master — 
or, as the author of c Vice Versa ' irreverently puts it, 

9 



130 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

'at all events, a master old enough to know better' — ■ 
from a young one is very shocking. The French will 
also be delighted, because the pictures were bought by 
Saxony out of its share of the war indemnity. Persons 
with any sense of propriety are, on the other hand, 
much distressed ; they understand the principle upon 
which art is valued, and admire a picture not upon the 
vulgar ground of merit, but on its being the work of 
some particular hand, the older the better. One hardly 
likes to associate a deplorable catastrophe of this kind 
with the ludicrous ; but what is really rather funny, 
the rogue who took in the Saxon committee (the very 
finest superfine Saxony) actually invented an old 
master for their special benefit — David Myttens. I 
repeat, I don't like to speak lightly of such a matter ; 
but the device was certainly droll, and had even itself 
a sort of Art in it. Think of the scores of critics who 
have stood with telescopic palms before that picture 
in Dresden, and murmured in hushed and reverent 
accents, ' David Myttens ! ' I know an authority in 
art who, when in an admiring vein, is wont to write, 
c When once we have seen one of this great man's 
immortal works, it is impossible to imagine a world 
without them; ' and then follows some Dutch or Italian 
name. If he ever wrote that of David Myttens he was 
in error. Nevertheless, there was an old master of that 
name, and even a pair of Myttens, father and son, both 
painters, but both Daniels ; a portrait of the former 
was taken by Vandyke, and the engraving from it now 
lies before me. He practised his art in this country, 
and painted (for Charles I.) the dwarf Geoffrey Hud- 
son holding a dog with a string, which may be seen 
to-day, I believe (if you get an order), in St. James's 
Palace. 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 131 

Kidnapping is very much gone out of fashion. It 
jwas once quite a happy hunting-ground for the novelist 
lin search of a plot ; but the gipsy is not the man he 
was, and I doubt whether the child of noble family 
has been whisked out of his coroneted perambulator, 
steeped in walnut-juice, and compelled to ' dwell in 
'tents ' for these fifty years. On the other hand, pet 
animals are stolen more than ever. It is not very long 
ago that a lady of fashion, who, after buying her own 
iFido six times from the dog-stealers, declined to pur- 
chase it any more, received a peremptory notice from 
the robbers — borrowed probably from the custom of 
Italian brigands — that if two sovereigns were not paid 
by a certain date she would receive Fido's skin by par- 
cel post. A sagacious physician of my acquaintance 
fwho lost his pet dog put a little notice in the paper 
headed 4 Warning ! ' which charitably described the 
animal as having ' strayed.' 4 It is of no value, not even 
to the owner ; but having been experimented upon for 
scientific purposes with many virulent poisons, a lick 
from its tongue — and it is very affectionate — would 
probably be fatal.' That dog came back the next day. 
Talking parrots are much sought after by good judges 
of birds, who also deal in them. One changed owners 
the other day, and was the subject of another Solomon's 
judgment in the police-court. The gentleman — to put 
it without offence — who was decided not to have been 
the original proprietor, had adopted the most ingenious 
device to prove possession. ' Your parrot ! ' he exclaimed 
indignantly to the claimant. 4 Did your parrot swear 
like this?' whereupon Polly indulged in the most 
'cursory observations.' ' Can your parrot sing ? ' upon 
which Polly sang this : 



132 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 

Oh, dear doctor, Polly is sick — 
Run for the doctor— quick, quick ! 

D the doctor, he is gone away ; 

Why the devil didn't he stay ? 

After this there was quite a German-Reed entertain- 
ment given by the parrot, except that the rules of pro- 
priety and good-breeding were utterly set at nought. 
The claimant, who was a very genteel person, stood 
aghast. He recognized his parrot, but not its manners 
and novel gifts. In six months its morals had been 
utterly debauched, though probably more with the 
intention of concealing its identity than from mere 
wickedness. I wonder how long it will be before pretty 
Poll becomes fit for society again ? It had better be 
sent to some public school to acquire ; the tone.' On 
the other hand, the young gentlemen have to be con- 
sidered, who, among themselves (I am assured by emi- 
nent educationalists), never use a naughty word. 



The technical organ Invention sounds a note of 
warning to ingenious but too ingenuous persons, who 
speak of their discoveries over the social board before 
registering them in an official manner. This practice 
too often, it seems, causes their ideas, or, rather, the 
proper record of them, to be anticipated. Some, per- 
haps scientific, but certainly larcenous, fellow-guest, 
goes to the Patent-Office before the inventor. This is 
hard, but not harder than having one's little jokes 
(small things, perhaps, but one's own) taken out of 
one's mouth and appropriated without acknowledgment 
by other people ; that is, at least, as common a crime, 
and much more cruel in its circumstances ; for the 
patent is still one's patent, and has been only too accu- 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 133 

rately described, whereas one's joke is often so muti- 
lated and misquoted that he is a wise father indeed 
who knows his own offspring. There is another wrong, 
too, from which the would-be patentee is free, to which 
the poor joker is subjected if in course of time (which 
he really can't help) he has become ancient. If he 
writes his biography and narrates something humorous 
that happened to himself in his youth, the critics, who 
are often as young as they are notoriously unscrupulous, 
point at it with derisive finger, and say, 'Why, this is a 
very old joke ! ' Quite true — it happened before they 
were born ; but it was new when it happened to the 
autobiographer. This, unhappily, is an experience of 
my own. How I came across the objectionable observa- 
tion I don't know ; it must have been the merest acci- 
dent, for I shrink from such things as though they had 
the small-pox. (I have not a word to say against the 
4 higher criticism,' of course, and only refer to persons 
who write of me in an uncomplimentary way.) Many 
authors, on the contrary, have a morbid passion for 
reading everything that is said against them. They 
subscribe a guinea a year to the gentlemen who under- 
take to send you fc cuttings ' of everything that is printed 
about you throughout the universe. An accomplished 
journalist was once called upon by one of these 
bestowers of immortality at second-hand, and besought 
to become a subscriber. 4 But, my good, sir,' urged the 
journalist, 4 my unfortunate profession compels me to 
read all the newspapers for myself.' 'The English 
newspapers, perhaps,' rejoined the enterprising agent ; 
4 but you have no idea what offensive things are said 
about you in the Colonies and America.' 



134 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 



A correspondent of the Athmceum, who writes 
from Stationers' Hall, lays the blame of the uselessness 
of that institution, as regards the titles of books, upon 
the law of copyright. Its uselessness has, however, 
nothing to do with the law, but arises from the miscon- 
duct or idleness of those who are in authority. All 
that authors ask of Stationers' Hall, and have asked for 
the last quarter of a century, is that it should keep its 
books in a proper manner — i.e., with their titles alpha- 
betically arranged. It persists in mentioning only the 
authors' names ; how is it possible then for an author 
who wishes to discover whether his title has previously 
been used to inform himself of the fact? This simple 
suggestion, which meets all difficulties, is treated by 
Stationers' Hall with contemptuous indifference. The 
law is so far to blame as not to insist upon the adoption 
of this remedy. If the class who are interested in this 
matter had any political platform, the authorities of 
Stationers' Hall would see their way to amendment 
quickly enough. 



. 



A wretch, who calls himself the ' champion contor- 
tionist,' was brought up before a Magistrate the other 
day for torturing a child of four } r ears old — whom he 
had purchased for his trade — by ' bending' back its 
little limbs, and beating it black and blue with a brush. 
His whining defence was that he did not know the 
brush hurt so. If I had been the Cadi, I would have 
convinced him as to what hurts, and taught him a 
contortion or two not in his programme. Considering 
the age of the victim, I remember nothing so shocking 
since that of the Miniature Tiger King in Paris — a 
little fellow who was shut up in a cage with cats to 



NOTES FROM THE l NEWS. y 135 

imitate wild-beast taming, with the results that always 
happen when those animals have no escape from ill- 
usage. I would have treated his proprietor more 
leniently than he did the poor boy. I would have shut 
him up with only one cat — with nine beautiful tails — 
and plenty of room to swing it in. Let the philanthro- 
pists say what they will, there is no punishment so 
deterrent for the cruel. Some philosophers attribute 
cruelty to misdirected high spirits — a sort of malignant 
horse-play. There was certainly a grim humor in the 
defence made by a gentleman of this class the other 
day, charged with beating his wife with a poker ; he 
said he only used the ' soft end ' — the handle. 



The suggestion that has lately been made that men- 
cooks should take the place of women, not as at present 
in rich households only, but in those of people of 
moderate means, is well worthy of consideration. The 
greatest plague of domestic life has long been cooks ; 
and they are getting worse instead of better. It is the 
custom to blame the mistresses for this, and they are 
certainly by no means free from reproach : a lady, in 
other matters trustworthy enough, will often tell a 
downright falsehood to get a bad cook out of her house. 
She excuses herself upon the same ground on which 
dishonest persons defend their passing bad money on 
us, because somebody else has passed it on them. They 
remind me of that member of a religious body who 
observed to a deacon of the neighboring parish that he 
didn't think much of the new minister he had sent 
them, though he had l cracked him up ' so. To which 
the deuci >n calmly replied : 'And you will have to 
'* crack him up," too, if you want to get rid of him.' 



136 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

Still, it is the cooks themselves who are the chief 
impostors. According to their own account, there is 
nothing they can't cook — till they try. In every other 
calling the applicant has to give his proofs — the clerk 
has to forward his handwriting ; the Government official 
has his examination to pass — but we must take the 
cook's own opinion of her efficiency, backed by her 
late mistress's interested warranty. These things 
ought not so to be. Why are we all liable to be 
poisoned for a month, or to pay a month's wages for 
nothing ? If the so-called schools of cookery are worth 
even their salt, they should guarantee to their patrons 
at least one trial of their clients, which the latter would 
willingly pay for ; it would be much more satisfactory 
than their present assurance that their Mary Janes can 
4 cook for a* Prince.' I have had cause to wonder who 
that Prince is, and (especially) whether he still sur- 
vives. 



In the abstract of i Crime in the Army ' which has 
just been published, I see no notice of malingering. 
The short-service system has probably done away with 
it. The contests between the soldiers who wanted to 
get out of the army and the doctors who wanted to 
keep them in it were often very obstinate and protracted. 
What the sham sick went through in pursuit of their 
evil end threw the tortures of the martyrs into the 
shade ; but they were generally successful. On the 
other hand, an unexpected ordeal would sometimes 
blast the fruits of years of imposition. In one case, a 
poor fellow, who was supposed to have lost the use of 
his lower limbs, was sent home from the Mediterranean, 
after no less than two years of duplicity, to be discharged. 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 137 

A fire, however, broke out on board the ship, and the 
first man in the first boat — he also had his trunk of 
clothes with him — was that chronic invalid. Nowadays 
there is still some malingering among schoolboys when 
Dr. Blimber receives his little friends at the conclusion 
of the holidays ; but it is nothing to what it used to be 
in the old hard days of school. Even schoolgirls were 
adepts at it. One of the most famous cases was that 
of a girl of fifteen who feigned tic-do uloureux. She 
was very good-looking, which, no doubt, helped her to 
take in the physicians ; but she did it very completely. 
The great Dr. Thomson of her day — as one may read 
in the Medical and Surgical Journal — made her case an 
illustration of ' the effects of mental impressions on the 
nervous system.' It was a scientific l precedent ' for 
eight years, when the young lady, who had then become 
a wife and a mother, wrote to apologize for making a 
fool of him. 'The fact is,' she wrote with charming 
frankness, ' I didn't like my school.' 



The Giant, the greatest, if not the most popular, 
attraction of the Winter Circus in Paris, has 'bolted,' 
and, with his personal raiment, many yards of cloth of 
gold, the property of his proprietors. Giants are gen- 
erally a trouble to those who keep them : perhaps 
from seeing so much of themselves ; they think 
too much of themselves; but they are always dis- 
satisfied. The Giant at Cremorne once poured his 
woes into the sympathizing ear of Frank Buckland , 
he complained that he was shown for a shilling in the 
same compartment with the straight-haired negress, at 
whose woolly-head visitors were allowed a pull apiece, 
to satisfy themselves of its genuineness. The good- 



138 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

natured naturalist recommended the son of Anak to 
strike for more wages and a separate exhibition. He 
did not say : ' If you fail, come to me ' ; but that was 
just what he did. A cab arrived one morning at 
F. B.'s residence — which was not at all fitted in size 
for the reception of such a person — with a head and 
shoulders out of window, ten feet of legs inside, 
and a great crowd of admirers all around it. Never 
was guest of eminence less welcome. Still, he was 
the only giant, F. B. used to say, who had good legs, 
and thanks to them and his host's knowledge of the 
proprietors of travelling caravans, which was both 
4 extensive and peculiar,' he soon got an engagement. 
But F. B. never forgot his visit. The details were 
unpleasant, and can be best described, as it were, 
negatively. .Everyone has heard of, and some of us 
have read, 4 The Angel in the House.' Well, a giant 
in the house is just the reverse of all that. 



We have heard a good deal, and not very much to 
its credit, of 4 How History is written,' but we have 
only lately been informed how this is done in China. 
I once heard a clergyman in the pulpit dilate upon the 
evils of poverty, which he described as a very unpleas- 
ant and inconvenient thing ; when he had quite done 
(as we all hoped) he added, as if struck with a new 
idea, 'and all this, my dearly-beloved brethren, is still 
more true of abject poverty.' Similarly, whatever may 
be said against history in the abstract is still more trne 
of Chinese history. It is made up, we are told, of two 
equal parts : the first is composed by a commission of 
accomplished scholars, who give their views of what 
has been happening in the world, or so much of it as 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. ' 139 

they can see from a Chinese standpoint ; the second 
consists of the Emperor's view of the same affairs, 
which he has still fewer opportunities of observing. 
Moreover, the first account of matters is subject to the 
influence of what to the c commission of accomplished 
scholars ' seems most likely to be the Emperor's views. 
4 Historical candor, therefore,' says our informant, 
4 can scarcely find a place in reference to nations, or 
persons, who have been in conflict with the Court.' 
This is really the most delightful state of things (for 
the Emperor) that has ever fallen to the lot of a human 
being. I have never envied anyone connected with 
literature so much. There is a foolish song written 
by a wise poet, which ascribes the greatest amount of 
power to two potentates, who of late years have been at 
rather low water. ' Oh, if I were King of France, or, 
what is better, Pope of Rome, etc' A better-informed 
bard would now, perhaps, sing, 4 Oh, if I were Chancel- 
lor B., or, still better, Mr. G. ' ; but, for my part, I 
bow the knee to the Emperor of China. Think of 
writing history (he dictates it, but that's a detail) out 
of one's own head, and according to one's own taste 
and fancy ! I suppose, as in the Annual Register, 
there is a department headed 4 Literature,' where I 
should exceedingly like to say a word or two. I would 
see that the natives of the Flowery Land ( 4 largest circu- 
lation in the world ' ) came to the right shop (or, at 
least, to the right author) for books. The idea of the 
opportunities (for good) in the hand of his Celestial 
Majesty positively takes my breath away. The 
potentate I used to envy most was Louis XIV., who 
had the privilege, after he had taken up his hand at 
cards, of selecting what should be trumps. But what 



140 NO TES FR OM THE <NE WS: 

is winning a rubber at whist (eight points at most) 
compared with the power of conferring an immortality 
of fame — or, to put it more plainly, of recommending 
a work of fiction, which, thanks to the loyalty of a 
literary nation (and a liberal use of the bastinado), 
would have all the force of a command? 

A recent trial, in connection with the expulsion of a 
boy from school, opens up the question of juvenile 
delinquency among the upper classes. The frequency 
of theft as revealed during the late investigation, is 
simply amazing. In most of our public schools such a 
crime, though by no means unknown, is rare. It 
stands, though it should not perhaps do so, at the head 
of school offences, as murder does of those of adults. 
Drunkenness* comes next, and then habitual lying. 
For all these offences, because the black sheep who 
practice them taint the flock, expulsion does not seem 
too severe a punishment. Unfortunately, boys are 
sometimes, if not expelled, sent away, or, 4 recom- 
mended to be withdrawn,' for much more venial crimes 
— such as smoking, for example ; while some over- 
grown brute, who is a notorious bully, continues with 
impunity to make scores of young lives miserable. Of 
course, there is no such thing as an innocent boy — one 
might just as well talk of a smooth hedgehog — but I 
have known several comparatively harmless lads sent 
away from school, while some moral pests were allowed 
to remain there because they did not interfere with 
' discipline,' or, in other words, give trouble to the 
authorities. There is morality and there is school- 
masters' morality, just as there is soup and tinned- 
soup. The effect of this is that the mere fact of a 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 141 

boy's being sent away from school is, except in ' educa- 
tional circles,' not thought very much of. The conse- 
quences of it, naturally enough, are made the most of 
by the fears of parents, which it is the interests of 
pedagogues to magnify ; but I am not aware that they 
are very serious. If a boy is really a ' bad lot,' his black- 
guardism will crop up soon enough after he has been 
evicted, wherever he is ; but if he has been sent away 
for a premature devotion to tobacco, for example, the 
matter (as it should do) soon blows over. 



The boy is not so much the father of the man 
(thank Heaven!) as the poet supposes. At the uni- 
versity it is different ; the character is then more 
formed, and when a young gentleman there goes 
wrong, there is much less chance of his recovery. I 
am far from wishing to weaken the hands of school 
authority, but to attach great importance to the 
escapades of a scapegrace schoolboy — provided they are 
not crimes, or significant of a cruel disposition — shows 
an ignorance of human nature, as well as of the manner 
in which our educational system is conducted. More- 
over, it should be remembered that to some boys of 
exceptional, but not necessarily worthless, natures, the 
restraints of school (and even its amusements) are very 
irksome. Lord Camelford (not a good specimen of a 
grown-up scapegrace, however, it must be confessed) 
was once lamenting to Sir Francis Burdett and Home 
Tooke how he had thrown his chances in life away. 
4 1 began it,' he said, ' by running away from the 
Charterhouse.' 4 Oh, as to that,' observed Sir Francis, 
4 I ran away from Westminster.' 4 Well, if we are to 
be at confession,' exclaimed Home Tooke, 4 / also ran 
away from Eton.' 



142 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 



er- 



It is not usual for clergymen to complain of the eager- 
ness of the public to read their sermons — a demand 
which naturally creates the supply ; but the Bishop of 
Peterborough is an exceptional preacher, and his case 
seems a hard one. I don't myself see why what a man 
preaches, if he intends it to go no farther than his 
congregation, should not be his own as much as what he 
writes. Where would be the trade of the lecturer, if 
his lecture were transferred to the columns of the next 
morning's paper? I don't lecture myself (nor give 
occasion for being lectured), but I did on one occasion 
preach a sermon — not (I am thankful to say) reported — 
and I can feel for the divines. An extempore preacher 
must often say things in the pulpit — not in what we call 
' the heat of the moment,' of course ; far from it, but in 
the perfervidness of the heart — which he had much 
rather not see in print. In nine cases out of ten, nobody 
wants to publish such discourses ; but it would be a pity 
if the practice of reporting them should prevent the 
exercise of the gift where it really exists. Read sermons 
are, after all, like read speeches : there is a want of fire 
and force about them. That religious Monarch, Charles 
II., was so moved by this disadvantage that he issued an 
ordinance against them. i Whereas his Majesty is in- 
formed [it seems he did not go to church himself] that 
the supine and slothful practice of reading sermons is 
general, he commands it to be wholly laid aside, and 
that preachers deliver their sermons, both in Latin and 
English, by memory and without book. 7 The poet 
Cowper is very severe upon 

The things that mount the pulpit with a skip, 
And then skip down again; pronounce a text; 
Cry, ' Hem ! ' and reading what they never wrote, 
Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, 
And, with a well-bred whisper, close the scene. 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWSS 143 

But Cowper liked good measure in sermons, and was 
not alarmed, when sitting under an extempore divine, 
as some of us are, lest he should ' go on,' like Lord 
Tennyson's brook, 'for ever.' There are arguments 
to be urged on both sides : in the one practice the 
congregation is apt to suffer, in the other the clergyman. 
The saddest story of the latter kind is, perhaps, of the 
reading divine, who, conscious of small gifts of com- 
position, got some sermons from a friend, an able but 
unknown metropolitan preacher. He was thus assured 
of the doctrine of his discourses, and also that his 
congregation would not recognize them, as sometimes 
happens even with bought MSS. All went well until 
he came to the final passage of the first sermon, when he 
rather astonished his congregation : ' And now, my 
beloved brethren, I hope that I shall never see your faces 
in this place again.' He had forgotten that his friend 
was a jail chaplain. 



Although the Army is said to be a ' poor profession' 
so far as money-making goes, there are prizes in it, and 
not only for the Generals. I read that a Major in the 
Artillery has been given £ 25,000, as a gratuity, with a 
retaining fee of £1,000 a year for ten years, for his 
4 position-finder.' The nature of this instrument is un- 
known to me, but it sounds worth all the money. 
There are so many people whose position is doubtful, 
and about whom other people would like to be informed ; 
and again, so many who are striving and struggling for 
a position, and never seem, after all their expenditure of 
pains and cash, to be certain of having acquired it. 
What a comfort it will be to have some accurate and 
scientific test of where we really are in Society ! The 



144 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

Lord Chamberlain is thought highly of as an authority 
in these matters, and also the College of Heralds ; but 
the former only concerns himself with people who go 
to Court, and the latter is tedious in its process. The 
4 position-finder' can be applied, it is said, to other than 
great guns, and is prompt in action. Imagine a 
graduated scale, with county families, landed gentry, 
gentleman-farmers, etc., for the country ; and aristoc- 
racy, smart people, professionals, genteel traders, etc., 
for the town, and the Major's admirable little machine 
(with a click, perhaps, like a cigar-cutter) finding the 
exact niche to fit you in half a minute ! 



Makkiage gifts are not what they used to be ; they 
are much better, and more valuable. The chief spec- 
tacle, next to the bride, at the house where her mar- 
riage feast is held is, now, the long tables tastefully 
set out with the nice little things (and some pretty big 
ones) which have been given to her and her beloved 
object. ' Know all men by these presents,' her proud 
and pleased face seems to say, ' how much he is liked 
by all who know him, and how Papa and Mamma are 
liked, and how some people have a regard even for 
me ! ' If I were a bride whose engagement had been 
broken off, one of the most serious disagreeables of the 
position, to my mind, would be the returning of them. 
I should prefer to keep them /or next time, which would 
save a great deal of inconvenience and embarrassment, 
and would also make sure of them. The gifts from the 
man himself, or those, at least, which were eloquent of 
the affections — the faded flower, his poems and billets- 
doux, and his much-too-complimentary photograph — 
would, of course, have to be returned ; but I don't 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 145 

think I would insult him by sending back valuable 
I jewellery. He should have the 4 keeper ' of his en- 
gaged ring (and welcome), but not the ring itself, which 
it is only too probable the false creature would put to 
the same use with some other young person. ' Take 
back the gift (price two shillings)' was a song, both 
the sentiment and price of which were justly and 
severely commented upon a quarter of century ago. 
You should never take back a gift ; and, therefore, it is 
clear you should not afford the giver the opportunity 
i of doing so. 

So thought a young lady in East London the other 
iday, whose discarded lover, nevertheless, took out a 
summons against her in a police-court for the restitution 
of what he still believed to be his property, because 
he had parted with it (like the cynic's definition of 
gratitude) in the hope of favors to come. If his love- 
gifts were not very valuable they had been unusually 
various; comprehending tables, towels, three sets of 
fire-irons, an athletic costume (unhappily not more 
particularly described), nineteen pictures, and a lamp. 
This was surely pretty well as to quantity : their 
'rather peculiar nature, as he explained, arose from the 
young woman's taking a fancy to things she saw in 
shops, (such as a fire-iron), when she would say, 
* That's very nice, I like it,' whereupon, witnessed this 
ungallant Romeo, • I bought it, and she kept it.' Un- 
like the young person of Oldham, who i when she got 
presents she sold 'em, and when folks said " How 
mean ! " she replied " All serene," and that's about 
ill that she told 'em,' this young lady did not sell her 
presents (very wisely, for they never bring one half 

10 



146 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 






they cost) ; but simply, and so far as they would go, 
furnished her house with them. Sentiment ha v in gr 
come to an end, she took a common-sense view of the 
matter, and, though she may not have been exactly the 
girl, as the phrase goes, i for my mone}V she proved 
herself to be the girl for her sweetheart's, for the magis- 
trate decided in her favor. Some things, indeed, were 
ordered to be given up, but not the fire-irons ; and I 
have searched the report in vain to find what became 
of that 'athletic costume.' 



A legal question has just been settled as to whether 
or no a certain pew in a parish church was an appur- 
tenance of a country mansion — the decision was against 
its proprietor, and is doubtless a matter of congratula- 
tion upon public grounds ; but I confess I am sorry for 
the loser. I know all that can be said for open sit- 
ings, and agree with it ; but nothing is more agreeable 
to its tenants than a roomy, old-fashioned family pew ; 
it makes the same difference to the worshipper that 
the possession of a private sitting-room makes to the 
frequenter of hotels. I remember one in the vale of 
Berkshire, which, as a boy, used to afford me infinite 
content. It was very large and high, and had a fire- 
place in it, the supplying of which with coals, so as not 
to disturb the preacher, was a most delicate operation. 
I could only see him by standing on the seat, and 
(what was of much more consequence) he could not 
see me: I was what good Catholics call 4 in retreat,' 
and profited by the circumstance. The most interest- 
ing account of a pew in fiction is probably to be found 
in ' The Legend of Montrose.' Scott is not now read, 
I fear, by boys; but how I used to delight in that 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 147 

account of Dugald Dalgetty's impatience under the 
Presbyterian preacher's ' sixteen thly ' and 'seven- 
teenthly,' while he thought of the noble marquis 
bound and gagged in the dungeon below, and whether 
his condition would be discovered before that pro- 
digious sermon was finished. Never, I suppose, even in 
real life, was discourse listened to with such unappre- 
ciating ears. 



To the Lambeth Conference I have not been an 
invited guest, which I regret for many reasons, but 
especially because I miss the society of the American 
bishops. During the Pan-Anglican Synod I was 
more fortunate, and I found them charming. Though 
not a whit, of course, less of divines than our English 
dignitaries, they are much more human. They mix 
with their fellow-creatures more as if they belonged to 
them, and wear their lawn with a difference — as it 
were — tucked in. There is more frankness and free- 
dom in their talk, and they don't think it wicked even 
to be witty ; whereas, when our Anglican prelates 
(with some exceptions, however) condescend to joke, 
it is rather a serious business. The Transatlantic 
Bishop never forgets that he is an ecclesiastic, but he 
is not afraid of dropping the dignitary. In the first 
place, he generally smokes. We are told, and with 
truth, by Kingsley, that tobacco begets solemn and 
devotional thoughts ; and no doubt that is why he 
smokes. My first introduction to the most charming 
Bishop I ever met, I owed to a cigar. I offered him 
one, after a certain dinner, not without trepidation — 
but, as I was going to smoke myself, I only thought it 
civil — and he accepted it with rapture. 4 This is the best 



148 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

hospitality,' he said, ' that I have enjoyed since I came 
to England.' ' But did not our Bishops give you good 
dinners ? ' I said (much distressed for the honor of the 
Bench), for I knew he had been on a round of visits 
to them. ' Oh, yes ; nothing could be kinder, sir. 
But there was no tobacco. Even at Lambeth? here 
Lis voice took that pathos for which he was so justly 
admired in the pulpit, ' there was no tobacco.' 



Another and another controversy about smoking ! 
How fond of fighting people must be to wage war 
against so general a practice ! What is the use of it ? 
Do they for a moment suppose that persons who like 
tobacco, and with whom it agrees, will give it up 
because other persons who don't like it, and with 
whom it disagrees, affirm they ought to do so ? The 
egotism of such a supposition is amazing. For my 
part I hate walking ; to my mind it is disagreeable in 
itself, and renders those who indulge in it morose and 
silent; but I should never dream of attempting to per- 
suade people not to walk. A Canon of St. Paul's, 
lamenting the spread of smoking, which 'accentuates 
the separation of the sexes ' — meaning, I suppose, that 
poor little half-hour one snatches for a cigar after din- 
ner — thinks that there will be nothing for it but that 
ladies must smoke too. That would be deplorable, 
indeed ; but if the alternative is to be the man's giving 
up tobacco, I can assure the reverend gentleman that 
to that we shall come. The peculiarity of the anti- 
everythingarians of all sorts is, however, that they are 
never right about their data. Smoking does not, like 
drinking, separate the sexes; the most intelligent of 
the many ladies whom 1 have had the honor to know 



NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 149 

are far from hostile to tobacco. A few, no doubt — 
just as there are a few men similarly constituted — dis- 
like its odor ; but with the majority their repugnance 
to it is not really genuine. They regard the gentle 
Nicotine as a rival in man's affections, and hope that 
by abusing her they will induce him to cast her off; a 
little reasoning (by analogy) would teach them better. 
An argument, too, that should have some force with 
them — for this class of dame is generally addicted to 
the aristocracy — is the fact that the higher the rank of 
a lady the more leniently, not to say more favorably, 
does she regard the smoking of her male friends. As 
to the Don Quixotes who would put an end to it, they 
might as well recommend the extinguishing of our 
hearth-fires — with which, indeed, it has a much closer 
connection than they suspect. 



Another practice which it is as useless to fight 
against as 4 smoke,' or a shadow, is that of giving tips to 
guards and porters. Nevertheless, it has found a new 
antagonist in one of the railway ' organs.' Any stick 
will do to beat a dog with, and this journal actually 
finds offence in the conduct of the tippers because they 
do not add to the enormity of their crime by feeing the 
engine drivers and stokers. If the principle is wrong 
these unpaid persons should surely rejoice in their un- 
tempted virtue ! Is it possible that this shrill cry of 
protest proceeds from the engine itself ? There is a 
little scalding steam in it, directed against those wretches 
who not only tip guards, but ' beguile the tedium of a 
journey by taking one another's money at shilling 
whist.' It can hardly be suggested that they should 
take, instead of one another's shillings, the money of 



150 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

passengers who are not playing whist ; and yet one does 
not otherwise clearly see the application of this sarcasm. 
Tips are not given from mere lavishness, but because 
of some particular service rendered, or supposed to be 
rendered, to the donor ; with some persons — though not 
very many, after all — it is as natural to reward civili- 
ties with a coin of the realm as with a ' Thank you.' 
Perhaps, however, even thanks may be demoralizing ; 
in that case, let us have a by-law, by all means, that 
' no servant of the company is to accept of thanks 
under pain of instant dismissal ; ' it will be quite as 
sensible, and just as much respected as the ordinance 
against tips. 

The existence of a French Archery Club, of which 
we have heard something lately, must have been a sur- 
prise to many of us. One would have thought the bow 
and arrow were too full of unpleasant associations for 
a Frenchman to handle ; if there is one thing in our 
English histories which is more typical of our pre-em- 
inence over our neighbors across the Channel than 
another, it is the Long Bow. There can be no question 
of our superiority with that weapon ; but I confess I 
have my doubts about the excessive skill with which 
our use of it has been credited. Is it this exaggeration, 
I wonder, which has associated the ' drawing the long 
bow ' with lying? The Persians were taught ; to draw 
the bow and speak the truth,' which seems to be a con- 
tradiction in terms. To anyone who has attended a 
modern archery meeting the difference of its results to 
those recorded in ' Tvanhoe ' (which is a fiction) is cer- 
tainly very marked. No one has ever split a willow 
wand at a hundred yards, to my knowledge, and far 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 151 

less notched one arrow with another, as at Ashby-de-la- 
Zouch. I always admired the honest archer in that 
novel, who confined himself to saying that his grand- 
father had drawn a good bow at the battle of Hastings, 
instead of performing any very striking feat himself. 
In these days of competition for money prizes, which, 
however low the motive, certainly produce the most 
excellent performances in every branch of athletics, 
there is a significant absence of the bow and arrow. 
If anything could really be done with them, such as one 
reads of in the historical novel, it certainly would be 
done. I can fancy no advertisement more attractive 
than that of ' Feats with the old national weapon.' If 
there is ' money ' in anything, there would certainly be 
money in that ; and yet there are no feats, unless hit- 
ting a target the size of a barn-door can be so called. 
We have ' the Foresters ' annually at the Crystal Palace, 
but I am not aware that they attempt to rival Robin 
Hood. It has been proved incontestably that William 
Tell never split an apple on his son's head with an 
arrow, and I don't believe that the similar miracles at- 
tributed to the English archer rest upon any more solid 
foundation. If they do, let us see them. It was once 
observed, to one of old, who boasted of the jumping 
powers he had exhibited at Rhodes, 4 Here is Rhodes, 
here is the leap ' ; and the same remark may be made 
to the English archer. 



A suggestion has been recently made by a literary 
humorist that no work shall receive its 'imprimatur' 
till fifty years after its author's death. The idea is 
mpritorious ; but what is more noteworthy is the false 
premises, though they meet with such general accept- 



152 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.* 

ance, on which it is founded. It seems generally 
argued that the merit, or the demerit, of every book is 
to be settled by the verdict of Posterity. Why ? On 
what grounds is it supposed that our descendants shall 
be better judges of what is good or bad in literature 
than ourselves ? So far as such a thing can be inves- 
tigated, the evidence seems all the other way ; for it is 
to be observed that the people who are always cackling 
about Posterity, and prophesying with their goose- 
quills about this or that author's place in letters a 
hundred years hence, are, invariably, praisers of the 
Past at the expense of the Present. It is probable they 
have no genuine admiration for it, and only pretend to 
have, in order to be as uncivil as possible to their con- 
temporaries ; just as a twice-married woman will praise 
her first husband, though she didn't care twopence 
about him, in order to annoy her second ; but one 
should be logical even in one's pretences. Now, if the 
last generation of writers and thinkers is so superior to 
our own, and the one before that to it, and so on and so on, 
it surely follows by analog}' that the next generation 
to ours will be inferior to it, and the next — which is 
Posterity — of still less account. Every spring, I notice, 
when the trees are putting on their leaves and the 
birds are beginning to sing, some jaundiced writer, as 
if disgusted with Nature being as fresh as ever, rates 
and prates in some antediluvian review or another 
about the degeneracy of literature, and of how inferior 
To-day is to Yesterday, and of how little even what 
seems to be good now will be thought of To-morrow, 
and so it has always been. Goldsmith complained of 
it ; Dryden complained of it — though one wonders now 
why they thought it worth their while. It is only 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 153 

reasonable that the Past, in letters as in everything else, 
should 4 win a glory from its being far, and orb into 
the perfect star,' unseen by those who moved therein ; 
but how foolish, groundless, and unprofitable is all 
this envious cant about Posterity ! The great master 
of humor perceived this, we may be sure, when he 
exclaimed, 4 I'll write for antiquity ! ' 



One is always afraid of ' telling a story ' — not a false- 
hood, which, unfortunately, has few terrors for us — 
but an amusing anecdote. There is always somebody 
who is ready to say he has heard it before (whether he 
has or not), and lots of people to believe him. Still, 
so far as I know, the following anecdote is new ; the 
subject most certainly is, for it shows how a young 
gentleman made money by publishing a book of poems. 
He had his doubts himself whether it would pay, 
especially after it had appeared ; and when good-natured 
friends (whose kindness, we may be sure, stopped on 
the wrong side of buying it) said, k You'll be half 
ruined,' he was rather inclined to agree with them. 
At last, in fear and trembling, he wrote to the pub- 
lisher to know the worst (which he had calculated at 
£80). ' Let me know how many of the edition have 
gone off,' ran his humble epistle, ' and what is the bal- 
ance I owe you.' The publisher wrote back : i Dear 
Sir, — Your whole edition has gone off, leaving a bal- 
ance of £20 in your favor; check enclosed.' The 
poet was in the seventh heaven, and yet not satisiied ; 
he rushed to the publisher's to inquire who had bought 
the book — friends, enemies, Mudie, or who? 4 My 
dear sir, I think you had much better not ask.' 4 Not 
ask? Why not? You wrote to say the edition had 
been all sold ; it must have been sold to somebody.' 



154 NOTES FROM THE l NE)VS: 

'Pardon me, I wrote that it had " gone off " ; so it had, 
the whole of it. There was a fire in the warehouse, 
and the contents were insured.' 

The institution of hospitals has hitherto been reck- 
oned as the highest form of benevolence and civiliza- 
tion ; but the Asylum for the Ugly, which I read has 
been established in Massachusetts, seems to surpass it ; 
for persons who subscribe to a hospital, though not ill 
at present, may do so from the apprehension that they 
may some day require its benefits ; whereas handsome 
people (like the reader), though they may grow old, 
can never grow ugly. The idea of the founders of this 
charity is that beauty is a matter of comparison, and 
that if plain persons were restricted to the society of 
the plain, it would lead to matrimony. 4 Love is of 
the valley,' says the poet, and the valley is in some 
sense the plain. On the other hand, another poet 
(your poets are so conflicting ) tells us ' Love is 
Truth ; Truth, Beauty,' which, by an application of 
Euclid, would seem to prove that Love is beauty. 
Certainly, if the theory of heredity is to be trusted, 
this benevolent scheme will probably increase and per- 
petuate ugliness, which is hardly to be desired. I can 
only remember one instance of its being an advantage, 
and I need not say it did not occur to a female. The 
Due de Roclore, the witty favorite of Louis XIV., was 
not only more than Ordinary looking,' but what is 
called in Wiltshire ' sinful ordinary ' — a very plain man 
indeed ; but his acquaintance, Count Tonson, was 
plainer. This gentleman, having no beauty to spoil, 
was a great duellist, and having killed some persona 
grata of the Court, was condemned to death for it, 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 155 

The Duke interceded for him, and with great difficulty 
obtained his pardon. ' Why should you have taken 
all that trouble to save Tonson ? ' inquired the King ; 
4 he is not a friend of yours.' c Not at all, sire,' replied 
the Duke ; 4 but if he had suffered, I should then have 
been the ugliest man in France.' 



It is one thing for a popular author to be courted, 
and quite another to be county-courted. This has just 
happened to a lady who 'for more than thirty years 
has been writing Church books for children, " which 
seems to make the position still more deplorable. The 
incident is noteworthy as illustrative of the science of 
begging-letter-writing in connection with literature. 
The defendant was accused of issuing lithographic ap- 
peals, chiefly to clergymen, stating that she could not 
live very long, though it was probable that the disease 
from which she was suffering would not for two or 
three years assume a fatal form. In the meantime it 
seems that not only white meat was necessary for her, 
but that her turkeys should be boned. The plaintiff, 
who had lent her <£20 'to enable her to retain the 
copyright of a book,' made as great a point of this as if 
the lady had herself ' boned ' the turkeys. I do not 
myself see why, having got possession of the bird, she 
should not have made the best of it, especially as it 
was for the entertainment of ' a knight and his wife.' 
When persons of quality honor the likes of us poor 
literary folk with their company, we naturally wish to 
entertain them with the viands to which their position 
has accustomed them. There were, it is true, some 
other points in the case less in the defendant's favor ; 
but who can find fault with her suggestion to her 



156 NOTES FROM TEE 'NEWSS 

creditor tne divine ?— ' Would a few of my books be of 
any service in your parish ? ' It is a question I should 
like to ask, myself, of any beneficed clergyman, if I 
thought it would be of any good (to me) ; for it is 
probable that she did not intend to send them gratuit- 
ously for circulation in the Free Library. For my 
part, I am very grateful to her that she seems to have 
confined her applications to the clergy and refrained 
from importuning those of her own cloth. She may, 
it is true, have had reason to know that they have very 
little to give ; but I prefer to believe that the excellent 
principle of hawks not picking out hawks' een, or (less 
poetically) of dog not eating dog, forbade it. 



It is strange indeed, considering how numerous 
must be the failures in the calling of letters, how few 
of those who pursue it adopt this method of bettering 
their fortunes. When it does occur there is often 
nothing to be ashamed of ; it seems natural enough 
that a poor fellow on the lowest of the steep steps that 
lead to literary success should say to his more fortu- 
nately placed brother, « Pray lend me a hand.' At the 
same time, it must be confessed, I have known cases 
not altogether to the credit of the literary applicant. 
It is not right (and also very injudicious) to write on 
a Monday for assistance in a misfortune which the per- 
son appealed to has relieved on the previous Wednes- 
day ; of course, this is the result of a mistake — the 
inefficient keeping of a correspondent-book — and 
proves how just is the remark that literary persons are 
seldom good business men ; but it is fatal. Moreover, 
I object to defray the expenses of a gentleman in 
London to his native land, ' where literary genius is 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 157 

appreciated ' (Ireland), more than twice during the 
same autumn. Finally, the lithographic form seems to 
me antagonistic to sympathy, especially when (as in a 
communication I received this very morning) it com- 
mences thus : 4 1 am of gentle blood ; born of an 
ancient, but not wealthy, family in the North. I little 
thought in my youth to be reduced to live by my pen.' 
Of course, literature is not a lofty pursuit, but an anti- 
thesis of this kind does not recommend itself to me 
personally. 



Theke is a notion abroad that the older one grows 
the less one has to sleep, but for my part every year I 
like it in larger and larger quantities : 

The heights by great men reached and kept 

Were not attained by sudden flight, 
But they, while their companions slept, 

Were toiling upwards in the night. 

is a verse that has led a good many people astray. The 
poet does not tell us how those great men felt in the 
morning. I don't believe in this night work. Ar- 
senius used to say that one hour's sleep a night was 
enough for a monk ; but I am not aware that even as 
a monk he greatly distinguished himself. Caligula 
never slept above three hours, and no wonder. The 
best advice, I am persuaded, that can be given to a 
brain-worker is, ' Go to bed early, and sleep for ten 
hours.' It is true that doctors are addicted to work- 
ing at night, but they have the honesty to tell their 
patients, both in this matter and feasting (for there is 
nobody so i imprudent ' as your doctor), • Do as I tell 
you, not do as I do.' This cutting short of sleep is one 
of the snares in which we poor literary folk are so 



158 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

often caught and slain. What terrible examples have 
I not seen of it in the noblest and best of us ! Shake- 
speare understood the value of sleep thoroughly, and 
has written the noblest praise of it. The worst punish- 
ment even his imagination could devise for a criminal 
was that he should 4 sleep no more.' This, be it noted, 
was not because he had murdered his King and guest 
(though that, of course, was reprehensible), but because 
he had murdered Sleep itself, a very much more serious 
matter. 



That was a very cruel, though not an uncommon, 
trick to play upon the editor of an American magazine 
— to send him a short poem of John Keats', saying the 
author was only thirteen years old, and hoping it would 
find admittance. If, as reputed, it was played by his 
own proprietor, I know no more remorseless act, save 
that, perhaps, of seething a kid in its mother's milk. 
4 How could he, could he do so ? ' What can that editor 
think of his proprietor ? and what can that proprietor 
think of his editor — as an editor? I don't remember 
one's literary feelings ever being so shocked ! I don't 
think the^ editor ought to have shown such ignorance 
of his Keats, or made such a mistake — if lie was ignorant 
— about poems every one of which is exceptionally 
beautiful ; but it must not be supposed if, as is prob- 
able, this practical joke comes to be imitated by 
humorists on this side of the water, that every rejection 
of an extract from an established author is to score as 
a success. There are many things in the British classics, 
and especially in the blank verse ones, that have not 
deserved to be printed once, and much less twice. I 
remember an 4 able editor ' shutting the gates of his 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 159 

magazine in the face of a young gentleman who had 
fraudulently sent him some lines out of Thomson's 
' Seasons ' as his own, with what he considered the 
happiest result — rejection. Some good man took up 
the cudgels for my friend. 'You didn't print them 
because, of course, you knew they were Thomson's,' 
he said, 'though you didn't think it worth while to say 
so ? ' 'No, sir,' observed the editor blandly, ' they were 
not rejected on that account: I did not know they 
were Thomson's, but I knew they were dull.' This 
was taking the bull by the horns — or, rather, the young 
ass by the ears — indeed. 



The Czar and his Imperial family have been delight- 
ing the civilized world of late by having a picnic, 'just 
like anybody else, you know,' on one of the picturesque 
little islands off Helsingfors. ' Orders were given for 
a hamper, with all the requirements, to be placed in a 
boat, and their Majesties got into it.' If they had got 
into the hamper the circumstance could hardly have 
excited more delight and surprise. Having landed, the 
attendants were sent back, and the Czar, 'with the 
assistance of other members of the Imperial family, 
arranged an excellent luncheon.' As the luncheon was 
provided, and he had ' assistance,' I don't think so much 
of this feat , but the Emperor of all the Russias, we 
are told, then actually ' chopped the necessary fuel, to 
which, after considerable difficulty, he at length set 
light.' Of course, therefore, he did not use a match, 
none of your Bryant and May's (which once more lam 
glad to see 'strike' only on the box), but doubtless 
evoked sparks by the rapid rotation of a stick of hard 
wood applied to a soft one. I should like to have seen 



160 NOTES FROM THE l NEWS. y 

him at it : the Imperial family shielding the budding 
flame with their parasols, and offering strips of the 
Incendiary (the last Nihilist organ) as most likely to 
take light. The meal, we are assured, was much 
relished, and 4 the Samovar enabled the Imperial pic- 
nickers to turn out a delicious cup of tea.' This 
Samovar has puzzled a good many people : she is 
generally supposed to be a lady who answers to the 
personage who, at our seaside resorts, supplies hot 
water to tea-parties at twopence a head. Even in that 
case, the success of the experiment would have seemed 
nothing surprising ; but I am informed by a gentleman 
who has a wife who says she can speak Russian (which 
is as near to a Russian scholar as I have ever got) that 
the Samovar is a tea-urn, which renders the result still 
less miraculous. Still, it is not the thing done, don't 
you know, but the person who does it, that gives such 
a charm to social life. 



Fact has been once more trespassing on the domains 
of fiction, with certain alterations in the circumstances 
which it invariably adopts in hopes to conceal its breach 
of copyright. A happy couple in Scotland — or a couple 
who would have been happy but for the airs which the 
lady seems to have given herself — were engaged to be 
married. The young person, poisoned, perhaps, by the 
literature of some anti-tobacco society, suddenly set her 
face against smoking, and declined to set it against that 
of the beloved object unless he renounced this pernicious 
habit. She would not marry him, she said, unless he 
gave up his pipe. Instead of replying like a wise man, 
4 Then don't,' or like a cunning one, ' All right,' with 
a mental reservation of doing as he pleased when the 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 161 

knot was tied, in a moment of weakness he submitted. 
The prohibition, however, proved intolerable, and in 
another moment of weakness he began to smoke again, 
taking such precautions, doubtless, as would occur to 

I anybody to conceal the evidences of his crime. Un- 
happily, however, through circumstances over which he 

; had no control (or hardly any) the lady found it out. 

! 4 You have been smoking ! ' she exclaimed; ' I smell it ; 

I I will bring an action for breach of promise of marriage 

| against you.' Which she actually did. As the Judge 
observed, if she had made her objection to smoking be- 
fore the engagement commenced, there would have 
been something (though to my mind very little) in her 
contention; but that a young person after she has 
promised to marry you should indulge in all sorts of 
prohibitory ' fads' and absurd conditions is a little too 
much even for a jury in a breach-of-promise case. 
} Edwin,' this exacting Angelina might one day say, i I 
love you to distraction, as you know ; but I have made 
up my mind to marry no one who is not fond of pepper- 
mint ; ' and on another, ' Edwin, you are all in all to me ; 
but if you would call me yours you must become a 
vegetarian.' I confess the gentleman seems to me to 
have had a very fortunate escape. I dare say he is not 
aware, however, that he had a predecessor in fiction in 
the person of Mr. George Savage Fitz-Boodle. He, too, 
was engaged to be married to a young person who 
objected to tobacco; he, too, did his level best to give up 
Nicotina for her sake, and failed ; he, too, was detected 
by the olfactory nerves of his beloved object. The 
whole story, in short, of this Scotch couple (except their 
appearance in a law-court) has been already told in the 

4 Fitz-Boodle Papers.' 

11 



162 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 

Another case of plagiarism from literature has also 
occurred of late, but lies at the door, not of Law, but of 
Science. A poor woman was dying of starvation 
through her incapacity to take any nourishment. All 
the ordinary remedies and appliances had failed with 
her, when it suddenly struck her medical attendants 
that since digestible matter is emitted through the pores 
of the skin, it might also be introduced that way. * A 
mixture of oil and grease was therefore composed and 
applied externally, whereupon the heat of the skin 
rapidly absorbed the nutriment and the patient* showed 
signs of renewed vigor.' It is all very well to ascribe 
this remedy to medical skill, but those who have read 
4 No Thoroughfare,' and remember what Joe Ladle took 
in ' through the pores,' will know that it is no novelty. 



Those victims of the competitive examination at 
Sandhurst who were set a question that couldn't be 
answered are likely to be very popular martyrs. There 
is nothing so hateful to the youth of Britain as ' ex- 
ams.' even when the papers are capable of solution ; 
and when they are not, the case seems hard indeed. 
It is not the first time, however, that young gentlemen 
have got into trouble from the same cause. I remem- 
ber a certain cramming-school where time was of such 
importance to the elder pupils, that they brought books 
with them even to their meals, and read until their 
turns came to be helped to the not very recherche* 
viands ; and where everybody else was, more or less, 
sacrificed to the Moloch of mathematics for their sakes. 
Misery so sharpened our wits that the ordinary school- 
books had no power to torment us; we .procured cribs 
to all their problems. But the head-master had a 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 163 

manuscript book of his own, from which issued the 
most hateful questions : it cost infinite pains and 
trouble — besides involving us in the serious offence of 
burglary — to get the crib to that, but at last we effected 
it. The improvement in the work of the school be- 
came henceforth very marked, and gave great satis- 
faction to everybody ; the master, our parents and 
guardians, and ourselves were all equally gratified. 

J There was a little too much quickness, perhaps, con- 

1 sistent with prudence in producing our results, but 
their accuracy was unimpeachable. On one unhappy 

i day, however, when every boy as usual had brought 
his sum to a correct conclusion, the pedagogue was 

! suddenly seized with an insane desire to see it worked 
out on the board: he had no suspicion, or he would not 
have pitched npon the head of the class to exhibit his 
skill. This young gentlemen had i fudged ' the answer, 
to save himself trouble, like the rest ; but he was now 
compelled to stoop to details, and they brought him to a 
different result. 4 There must be a mistake somewhere,' 
observed the master, frowning ; and we began to be 

j very much afraid there was. The second boy tried it, 
and with only too great success : he made it the same 
as the first. Then the master himself tried it, and 
arrived at the same terminus. 4 The answer in my 
book,' he said, in an awful voice, l is wrong ; and yet 
you have all got that answer ! ' I refrain from saying 
what subsequently took place, because I respect the 
feelings of those who ' like a story to end well ' ; and 
this incident had a very sad termination. 



A chivaleic German has been publishing an apo- 
logy for mothers-in-law. How many he has had of his 



164 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

own he does not tell us, but he writes like a man who 
understands his subject. It is high time, in my opinion, 
that such a book was written. The ridicule that has 
been cast upon that relative by playwrights and jokers 
has done a good deal of harm to as worthy a class of 
women as exists, and is generally falsely applied. The 
treatment of them, both in fact and fiction, is as cruel 
as it is cowardly. What is significant enough of the 
quarter from which it arises is that it is the wife's 
mother that is almost always made the subject of 
attack ; with the man's mother, I confess I have much 
less sympathy, for he can take care of himself, and if 
her fc interference ' is not superfluous, it ought to be ; 
but why should the mother of our girls — generally by 
far the most unselfish and self-sacrificing of all members 
of the family — become an object for detraction because 
one of them marries ? If her husband ill-treats her, it 
is natural enough indeed that he should detest her 
would-be defender; but why should the world at large 
join hands with the brute ? I have had some expe- 
rience of mankind, and paid an unusual attention (from 
other motives besides a great natural politeness) to my 
fellow-creatures, and I believe in mothers, whether 
their daughters are married or single. The prejudice 
against them is as false as it is vulgar ; and what is 
very hard on them, I notice that in works of fiction, 
even by the best writers, stepmothers (often just and 
fair-minded persons, no doubt, but who have many 
temptations to be otherwise) are habitually described 
as mothers-in-la 



An Order in Council informs us that the provisions 
of the International Copyright Convention have been 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 165 

extended to the Grand-Duchy of Luxemburg. This 
is news indeed for the English author ; if he does not 
at once set up his carriage on the strength of it, he can, 
at least, go to the coachmaker's and decide on what 
sort of carriage it is to be. On the prospect of the 
proceeds of a translation in every country on the Con- 
tinent he would, however, hitherto, have been rash to 
bespeak a gig. It may be very pleasant to be rendered 
into a foreign language for the first time, but that sen- 
sation wears away, and there is little else to be got out 
of the experience. For a novelist to appear in Russian 
is always interesting, because, even when he sees it, he 
can't tell which of his novels it is ; but, of course, i the 
vastest empire in the world ' pays nobody. Poor little 
Denmark, though honest enough so far as I have found, 
has nothing to pay. To get a ten-pound note out of 
Italy is like getting the breeks from a Highlander ; and 
France, though it has breeks, is extremely disinclined 
to part with them. A Frenchman once bespoke the 
whole of my immortal works ; the sum for each was 
small, but, on the principle of ' a reduction on taking 
a quantity,' I accepted his terms. I heard nothing from 
him for a year, when another Frenchman wrote to me 
for his address : c I have completed the translation of 

one of your novels for Monsieur D for fifty francs, 

but cannot get his money.' Nor could /, and I never 
did. The German translator pays what he promises 
you, though by no means the next day, nor even the 
day after ; it is not a splendid honorarium, but there is 
no saying what it may swell to now that the Grand- 
Duchy of Luxemburg has joined the Convention. 



Although the Americans have declined to accept, 



166 NOTES FROM TEE 'NEWS.' 

among the blessings of civilization, the principle of 
perpetual pensions, they have invented something like 
it, all their own. Instead of pecuniaiy compensation 
to the owners of land over which they travel, the rail- 
way companies, it seems, give free passes to them and 
their families. This causes the bonds of domestic union 
to be considerably extended. A man is apt to consider 
(when he travels) that his governess, and his god- 
daughter, and even (if he is a widower) the young 
woman he intends to marry when the year and day are 
out, to be all members of his family. When the Boston 
and Providence Railway was chartered, it seems to 
have trusted a good deal to its latter terminus in fram- 
ing its regulations upon this point. It is fifty years 
since it started, yet a lady with the characteristic name 
of Dodge has just established her claim to travel free 
upon it, as being the granddaughter of an original land- 
owner. With this travelling advantage (which is a sort 
of fortune) she will of course, marry, and in due time 
probably have grand-children of her own, and so on, 
and so on ; in time, therefore, it may happen that a 
line of railway — though passing through a populous 
neighborhood — will declare no dividends, because half 
of its passengers will be carried free. What fun it 
would be to see a meeting of shareholders on one of 
our railways (always a very excitable assembly as it 
is) agitated by the ' Dodge ' question ! 



The Queen, I am glad to record, takes her cats with 
her when she takes a holiday ; a very reasonable pro- 
ceeding, for surely if anybody can be called a member 
of 'the Household,' 'tis a cat. Unfortunately, what 
js done by Royalty, in the social way, affects only ' the 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 167 

best circles,' or else we should never hear, as we always 
do at the Exodus season, of cats left to starve in houses 
which their owners have quitted to enjoy themselves 
at the seaside. How can they, can they do so ? I 
suppose some of them go to church or chapel, or at 
all events (though they don't belong to the profes- 
sional classes) profess some kind of religion or another; 
but what brutes they must be ! What is worse than 
all, it is the housewife who is to blame in the matter ; 
the dog is 4 the friend of man,' and it requires a nature 
above the common in the male to appreciate or even 
4 think about ' poor pussy; but the cat is the companion 
of woman, always about her feet, if not in her lap, and 
this abominable and cruel neglect can in her case hardly 
be the result of thoughtlessness. No ; just as the cal- 
culation of the slave-owner used to be that it was bet- 
ter to work his slaves to death and buy new ones than 
to give them food and sleep, so these wretches leave 
their cats to starve rather than pay sixpence a week 
for their maintenance ! Let us hope that all the time 
they are away they never sleep for caterwauling. 



Caterwauling, or the music of the tiles, was at 
one time thought very highly of by the Continental 
public. In the French Encyclopedia (a work with a 
good deal of queer information in it) one reads of an 
organ, played by a bear, which enraptured the good 
folk of Brussels. Instead of pipes, the instrument 
contained a collection of cats, each confined separately 
in a narrow case, with their tails held upright, and 
attached to the jacks in such a manner that when the 
bear touched the keys, he pulled the tails, * thereby 
producing a most mellifluous mewim?-' The organic 



168 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 

had also Ms tail (or what there was of it) pulled 
occasionally, 4 so as to form a bass accompaniment.' 
This was abominably cruel, of course (though I must 
say rather funny) ; but it is probable that the cats 
were not personal friends of the proprietor of the organ, 
nor do we read that he shut them up in his house to 
starve when he had no further occasion for their 
services. 



An American novelist, who I conclude is in the 
sensational line, possesses, we are told, an inkstand 
made of a human skull. ' It has silver eyelids which 
open by a spring, disclosing two fonts in the orbits, 
that contain red and black ink. This is having all 
things k in a concatenation accordingly,' indeed, for the 
production of stirring fiction. The remains of our 
fellow-creatures have been often laid under contribu- 
tion before for ornamental purposes. c Rich and rare 
were the gems she wore, a human thigh-bone in her 
hair,' sings the poet. A well-known musician in Paris 
used to produce harmonious sounds from a highly 
decorated tambourine, the parchment of which had 
once been a very beautiful skin. i She sang divinely,' 
he would say, with tears in his eyes ; 4 and, as I play 
this, her voice seems to accompany the instrument.' 
But none of these 'adaptations ' seem to me so appro- 
priate as the author's inkstand. There is no reason 
why he should not add a bone pen, and somebody's 
scalp to wipe it on, to his writing materials. Then the 
only thing wanting to perfect completeness would be 
that the skull should be that of an inhabitant of Pater- 
noster Row. 



NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 169 

A much-debated question just now is how you can 
pay a professional gentleman for his services with the 
least shock to both your delicacies of mind. Some are 
for a genial bluffness with physicians and others ; you 
pull your purse out with a ' guffaw,' and observe that 
' short reckonings make long friends ' ; others hide the 
fee under the inkstand or somewhere, and leave the 
doctor to ' seek ' for it, as if he were a retriever ; others 
put it in the palm of their hand, and try to make it 
stick to that of the medical gentleman on taking leave, 
a plan that presupposes that he is not in very good 
health himself. A fashionable physician, of whom I 
ventured to ask whether patients ever went away from 
his consulting-room without paying, replied, ' Well, not 
exactly without paying ; but I have had four lozenges, 
neatly done up in paper, given to me instead of two 
guineas.' It so happened that he was a throat doctor, 
which I thought (though I didn't tell him so) made 
the mistake very appropriate. It is eas}^, of course, to 
cheat the doctor, but difficult to curtail his fee. There 
is a story of one who took his two guineas a visit with 
such excessive perseverance that the patient's wife 
resolved at last to give him but one. On receiving it 
he instantly fell upon all fours and felt about the floor. 
'Has anything been lost?' murmured the patient. 
'Yes, sir; a guinea,' responded the physician. And, 
rather than have a row by the bedside, the poor lady 
had to feign to have made a mistake. 



Mr. Grant Allen has had the audacity to state in 
the Fortnightly Review that there is no such thing as a 
born genius. This has, of course, brought down upon 
him from persons who are neither born geniuses nor 



170 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

made ones, the observation that Mr. Grant Allen is 
not in a position to decide that question. He has, no 
doubt, said not only a very bold thing, but one 
contrary to established opinion. It would have been 
safer to assert that a man of genius is not always up to 
his own high-water mark, and is often surpassed by 
the man of talent, who takes more pains. It is a 
curious mistake of the critics to conceive of a writer of 
the former class as always belonging to it. They talk 
of fe Scott's works ' as though c Count Robert of Paris ' 
was on the same level with ' Rob Roy.' In the case of 
poets, I venture to think that Mr. Grant Allen (who, 
nevertheless, is a man who knows what he is talking 
about, which is not the case with everybody) is wrong. 
The ' Tears, idle tears, ' of Tennyson, for example, could 
never have been written by a man of mere talent, or 
by one even who had only * the capacity for taking 
infinite pains ' ; but as regards prose writers, I am in- 
clined to agree with him that the distinction is some- 
what fanciful. At all events, one cannot withhold 
one's admiration from a man of letters who in these 
days has the courage of his opinions : the point he 
insists upon has, it is true, been always ruled against 
him, but not by a Court from which there is no 
appeal. 

Such analogy as can be drawn from the gifts of the 
dog-world seems to militate against Mr. Grant Allen's 
theory. The instinct of some dogs not only in degree, 
but in kind, is so infinitely greater than that of others 
— acknowledged to be ' clever dogs,' too — as to almost 
suggest a parallel superiority to that of genius over 
talent. It is noticeable that good sporting dogs rarely 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. > 171 

do tricks, just as a young gentleman who distinguishes 
himself in orthodox fashion at the public school, or 
the university, seldom i leaves the metals, ' or makes 
a groove for himself. It is not the high-born King 
Charles's spaniel, with all the advantages>of aristocratic 
surroundings, that delights you with his intelligence 
and high spirits, but the half-breed from whom one 
expects nothing. The collie is a dog of great sagacity, 
and very distinguished in his profession ; but for great 
(if somewhat eccentric) intelligence, we must go to 
the French poodle. He has also some of the drawbacks 
that are too often found in connection with genius : 
he is not a domestic dog (in the moral sense), and has 
a temper that is charitably called ' uncertain,' but 
which can, in fact, be relied upon as an exceedingly 
bad one. 



The Continental Powers have been trying various 
breeds of dogs for military purposes : to 4 relieve 
sentinels '- — not quite in the ordinary way, however, 
but to keep what at sea are called 4 dog-watches ' — to 
search for the wounded, etc. This novel branch of 
canine industry has caused several French naturalists 
to give their attention to the dog. The Russians, 
M. Jupin tells us, prefer the Caucasian breed for 
army use ; the Austrians, the Dalmatian ; and the 
German, the Pomeranian wolf-dog ; but the preference 
in France is given to the smugglers ' dogs, of whatever 
breed, in the frontier towns, because (I am sorry to 
say) of their immoral, or at all events illegal, anteced- 
ents, which give them habits of duplicity. They are 
quite capable of pretending to belong to the dog- 
contingent of the enemy, and will probably be shot as 



172 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

spies. M. Robert narrates some unpleasant stories 
about that ' friend of man, ' the Newfoundland. He 
not only corroborates the view of his drowning more 
people than he saves, but adds that he is vindictive. 
He tells how Alphonse Karr was almost eaten up by 
one which he had, too, immortalized in fiction ; and 
how another gentleman had his left eye torn out by a 
Newfoundland which he had awakened rather suddenly 
by dropping his newspaper on him. In this case the 
animal however, is excused on the ground of being 
4 highly nervous, ' which was also, I should think, the 
case with his master ever afterwards in respect to 
Newfoundlands. 



The country that is credited with the invention of 
gunpowder (which it has never known how to use) 
and of printing (which no one can read) has ideas of 
the same intelligent class respecting the human form 
divine. It applies torture without stint, and delights 
in the spectacle, but it is very solicitous about keeping 
the limbs intact ; decapitation is thought seriously of, 
not on account of its putting folk to death (which is a 
trifle to a Chinaman), but because of its mutilating the 
body. 'Amputation is vexation' is the motto even 
of its mathematicians ; and when an operation is per- 
formed upon a native of the Flowery Land he literally 
4 keeps the piece,' or, if possible, even devours it, under 
the impression that he has thereby restored it to its 
rightful owner. The North China Herald cites a case 
of a Chinese gentleman who lost his eye, and disposed 
of it in this manner, though it could be of no more use 
to him than ' the Pope's eye ' in a leg of mutton. When 
their teeth fall out, the Chinese grind them to powder 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 173 

and swallow them in water. They may be ' The Nation 
of the Future ' for all I know, as they have long been 
the most bepuffed people of the Past ; but judging of 
them by their ' tricks and their manners,' they are cer- 
tainly for the Present, the most idiotic race under the 
sun. There is one lesson, however, that the disciples 
of Confucius are in a position to teach us, and which it 
would be well for us to lay to heart — that it is quite 
possible to educate a nation, as well as an individual, 
beyonds its wits. 

A GOOD instinct should always be indulged, because 
it may never occur again, but we should be quite sure 
of its being good. An Anarchist of Rheims (a profes- 
sional description that somehow reminds one of those 
in Mr. Lear's ' Book of Nonsense ') was suddenly seized 
the other day with a desire (as Thomas Ingoldsby 
pleasantly expresses it) ' to pink a bourgeois.' He had 
not a small sword by him, which ought to have given 
him an opportunity for reflection, but, rather than let 
the aspiration fade away, he loaded his revolver. The 
Anarchist has an advantage over the sportsman in not 
having to go into the country to find his game ; what, 
according to his own account, this gentleman was in 
search of was ' a young, plump, and overfed citizen,' 
and this is to be found in every street. The first bour- 
geois he ' flushed ' was in some respects attractive ; he 
was a magistrate, in comfortable circumstances, but he 
was aged, and did not, perhaps, satisfy the conditions 
of 'plumpness.' 'I drew back,' said the Anarchist, 
with dignity, 'on finding myself face to face with so 
venerable a man.' His forbearance was presently 
rewarded by meeting with a prosperous young wine- 



174 NOTES FROM TBE l NEWS: 

merchant, at whom he fired a couple of shots, but in his 
excitement missed him. For this venial offence, from 
which, too, no harm resulted to anybody, this unhappy 
victim of impulse has been sentenced by a bourgeois 
Judge, without a trace of humor, to twelve years of 
penal servitude. 



Even in civilized countries, the language of courtesy 
in the mouth of Kings is, from a humorous point of view, 
exceedingly charming. They are 4 graciously pleased to 
accept' what, as a matter of fact, they are uncommonly 
glad to get, such as a present or a subsidy, and 'deign' 
to do things which to the vulgar eye seem rather to 
involve an obligation than to leave it on the other side. 
But in the East this imperial (and imperious) style is 
much more worthy of admiration. When a monarch 
flies in the face of Nature so far as to bestow something 
on his people instead of exacting it for himself, words 
absolutely fail him to express his sense of his own mag- 
nanimity. The last proclamation of the Shah of Persia, 
whatever may be its faults, has certainly no mock mod- 
esty about it. After stating that the Creator has ' made 
his [the Shah's] holy person the source of justice and 
benevolence,' he has decreed ' in sign of the watchful- 
ness, tempered with justice, of his Sovereign mind,' that 
in future 'all his subjects may exercise the right of 
proprietorship over their own belongings.'' The style of 
this announcement is unapproachable , but the princi- 
ple of it reminds one of the cry of the fruit sellers of 
Constantinople — ' In the name of the Prophet, figs ! ' 



Whatever is is right, and I suppose even teeth are 
no exception ; but there are certainly occasions when 



NOTES FROM THE l NEWSS 175 

one is tempted to envy the gentleman described in the 
ancient Classics who was born with 4 two semicircles 
of ivory above the jawbone, without any separation or 
division in them whatsoever.' Whatever ached in that 
connection it was not his teeth ; he knew nothing of 
the things that have been justly described as ' a trouble 
in coming, a trouble when they have come, and a trouble 
in going.' It has even been reckoned among the few 
advantages of extreme old age, that we have then done 
with our teeth and go to the rhinoceros (or whatever it 
is) for a fresh supply of quiet ivories warranted not to 
' jump' or ' plunge,' and to last for our little ' ever.' But 
now it seems even this poor blessing is fraught with 
danger. Within a very few weeks there have been two 
cases, and there was last week a third, of a gentleman's 
false teeth being very literally the death of him, through 
his swallowing them while asleep, and, probably, in the 
fc ivory gate' of dreams. There seems to be something 
almost demoniacal in the trouble these things give us. 
There is a Rabbinical legend that our first parents, be- 
fore the Fall, were made of a smooth, hard, transparent 
substance, and that flesh and blood was substituted for 
it, for their sin, except in the places where we still see 
it — videlicet, the finger nails. Filbert nails, vulgarly 
supposed to be a mark of good breeding, are thus in 
reality a proof of a more than usually spiritual nature. 
For my part, however, I don't believe a word of it. 



The novelists have been having (for them, poor 
souls !) quite a good time lately. It has been discovered 
by the playwrights who steal their plots that the theft 
is not very successful, since they have been forbidden 
to steal their dialogue. Though, it is true, only by an 



176 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

indirect action of the law, writers of fiction are placed 
on the same footing as the modern Persians, who as we 
have just read, have actually been allowed the privilege 
of possessing their own property. They have also been 
patted on the back by a Bishop. This is rare indeed, 
for hitherto they have received at the hands of the 
Church, like the monkeys that are attached to hurdy- 
gurdies, 4 more kicks than halfpence.' As a rule, there 
is nothing ecclesiastics resent so much as the discourses 
of the lay preacher ; and the novelists, though they 
speak to the million, and, moreover, to an audience who 
can scarcely be got to listen to anybody else, have been 
hitherto held lower than the 4 uncovenantecT divines of 
the street corner. The Bishop of Ripon has taken a 
juster view of their position and influence, and held out 
the olive-branch, instead of the birch, to his literary 
brother. If his lordship had only mentioned names, what 
an advertisement it would have been for somebody ? 
The dream of the popular novelist (though he never 
breathes it to anybody, because he wishes people to think 
he has no more realms to conquer) is to tap a new 
public. 



For finding out the truth of matters by ' frying ' 
or 'boiling down,' the Americans, notwithstanding 
their passion for 4 gas,' are generally to be depended 
upon. The question of whether young gentlemen 
who distinguish themselves in athletics make good 
scholars or otherwise has long been a debated one. 
In England it is the fashion to associate intelligence 
with muscle, though a few people are violent partisans 
of the contrary theory. From the calculations re- 
cently made from the educational and sporting data at 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 177 

Cornell University, it would seem that the athletes 
have their fair share of honors, considering that they 
do not devote so much of their time to study as the 
others, but very rarely distinguish themselves. This 
is pretty much what common-sense would have ex- 
pected. If the inquiry, however, had gone beyond 
mere scholarship, and concerned itself with other in- 
tellectual powers than that of acquisition, I cannot 
think that the disciples of baseball and ' the track ' 
would have made so respectable a record. I would 
back, for keenness, the professors of what Mr. Caudle 
called ' the manly and athletic game of cribbage M 
against those who indulge in the more 'violent 
delights ' of football : outdoor games, too, are some- 
times a source of weakness, which cannot be said 
( except in a moral sense ) of billiards and cocky- 
maroo. Lawn-tennis produces the ' tennis arm ' ; 
while whist (with the rare exception of the whist 
4 leg ') has nothing deleterious of that kind ; the 
'game hand ' which you occasionally get at it does you, 
on the contrary, a great deal of good. 



Why is it, I wonder, that there is always a tempta- 
tion to laugh at any incident with the least humor 
in it on the most solemn occasions ? Why do jokes, 
which in print read rather feeble, when uttered in the 
House of Commons move that august assembly to 
4 roars of laughter ' ? Why are the law courts 4 con- 
vulsed ' by very small witticisms, even though they do 
not proceed from the Judge? I should be sorry 
to think so ill of human nature as to believe it arises 
from mere 4 cussedness.' Perhaps it is that the sense 
of humor, too long repressed by pretentious surround- 



178 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

ings and an atmosphere of twaddle or tediui£, uncon- 
sciously swells and swells within us, and at the least 
opportunity explodes in what seems uncalled-for mirth. 
The greatest man I ever knew, and one of the most 
tender-hearted, once confessed to me that his well- 
known disinclination to attend funerals arose chiefly 
from the difficulty he experienced in keeping his 
countenance. 



A New York paper announces the discovery of 
a new wonder in the memory ' department ' — a lady 
who attends chapel, and, without taking a single note, 
goes home and writes down every word of her minis- 
ter's discourse without omitting a ' the ' or an ' and.' 
This seems to me to be a little rough upon her minis- 
ter, especially if he is an extempore divine ; but she 
does not mean it roughly. She has been at it for five- 
and-twenty-years, and written out two thousand of his 
sermons. Now and then she binds them, and has pre- 
sented him altogether with forty volumes. When he 
6 drops into ' Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, she even fol- 
lows him, having studied those languages, no doubt, 
for that especial purpose. The alligator ( I think ) is 
said to be accompanied by a little bird who devotes 
itself to him, in a somewhat similar fashion; but, 
with that exception, it is only popular preachers 
who are favored with such faithful and constant 
admirers. The poor layman may ' lecture ' for a week, 
and even his own children (to judge by their conduct; 
don't remember a word he says. 



There is much discussion just now as to whether 
various eminent persons speak or do not speak provin- 



NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 179 

cially 5 even when they do, it seems to me to matter 
little, though unhappily, thanks to a growing deaf- 
ness and the absence of the bump of ' language,' 
I find a greater difficulty in understanding them 
than most people. But why should authors who are 
acquainted with ordinary English persist in writing in 
a provincial dialect ? It is not helped out, like speech, 
with gesture and expression, and therefore puzzles 
one far more ; and though, no doubt, it gives a local 
coloring to a story, its readers, unless they are a 
local public, are more or less color-blind. If nov- 
elists must do this, let them put their dialect in the 
notes, as translations from the dead languages used to 
be put, i for the convenience of country gentlemen and 
others.' What would be said of an author born within 
the sound of Bow Bells who, because he was writing 
of Londoners, should put v's for w's, and leave out 
his h's ? I have also noticed this peculiarity in dialect 
stories : that all the people who come from the place 
the author would describe by this means protest that 
he knows nothing about the tongue in question. As 
it doesn't please them, and certainly fails in pleasing 
anybody else, why on earth does he do it ? It is 
curious, by-the-by, that the phrase, ' talking through 
the nose ' — a habit attributed by an American humorist 
to the English — should be applied to a nasal pronun- 
ciation ; this is so far from being the case that the 
the sound, or an admirable imitation of it, is caused by 
closing the nose. 



I HOPE one of the good fellows who took charge of 
the sixty Polytechnic boys on their month's holiday 
on the Continent the other day will give the world his 



180 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 

reminiscences of it. It is a long time since the delight- 
ful 4 Voyages en Zigzag ' appeared, and though the 
Boy has not changed (it is not in the power of any 
Polytechnic upon earth to change him), the conditions 
of travel have greatly altered since that time. The 
book should have illustrations, of course — instantane- 
ous photographs of what its French author called their 
' scenes of anarchy ' (bolsterings and the like), while 
to the edition de luxe might also be attached a phono- 
graph, stating exactly what they said in commenda- 
tion of the sublime scenery and foreign 4 tuck.' Travels 
among savages may be exciting, but think of travels 
toiih savages ! ' The Boy Abroad, and How He Made 
Himself at Home There,' would be an excellent title. 
They did it for five pounds apiece, too, and seem to 
have stolen nothing but a few cherries. Why are not 
all young persons taught to make their money ' go ' this 
distance? The sunburn on our boy's cheek, which 
delights his mother so, disappears when his holiday is 
over ; but however short it may have been, and how- 
ever ample his allowance, we never see 4 the color of 
our money ' again. If the Polytechnic can teach its 
pupils economy, it can teach them anything. I had 
once a lesson there, on another subject, myself (from 
the Electrical Eel), which I never forgot; but that 
was under the old regime- The present institution 
seems a still more admirable one ; and it speaks well 
indeed for the courage and conduct, as well as kind- 
ness, of its promoters that they should have played 
4 the schoolmaster abroad ' with such complete suc- 
cess. They certainly do not share what is said to be 
the weakness of the present age — the shrinking from 
responsibility. I once took charge of one boy on his 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 181 

travels abroad (from Saturday to Monday), and that 
is why (though I am quite young) my hair is gray. 



In China a gentleman has only to commit suicide 
upon his enemy's doorstep to make that individual 
miserable for life ; his blood is for the future on the 
householder's head, and, what is more material, the 
maintenance of his family upon his shoulders. This 
custom, in the Flowery Land, where folk do not mind 
putting themselves (or, indeed, other people) to death, 
upon the smallest provocation, is found to be incon- 
venient : yet, strange as it may seem, we are gradually 
adopting it in England. The law, it is true, is not so 
exacting, nor are Englishmen so ready to sever their 
4 mortal coil ' (as the poets terms the jugular vein) as 
Chinamen ; but when they do so, it has now become 
almost customary with them to leave a statement behind 
them, explaining their reasons for departure, and point- 
ing out with vindictive finger the person at whose door 
they wish the catastrophe to be laid. Sometimes, of 
course, the terrible punishment which this involves is 
a just one; but sometimes it is not so — as, consider- 
ing the vehemence of passion which often drives the 
accuser to leave this world, is not to be wondered at ; 
whether sound or unsound, his state of mind can 
hardly be a judicial one. In old times this habit was 
almost unknown among us, except in the best families, 
which were accustomed to be anathematized, root and 
branch, by some wronged retainer, and, if we are to 
believe in ancestral legends, with excellent effect (no 
male child ever reaching his majority from that moment, 
and no female being unprovided with a hump like a 
dress-improver in the wrong place) ; but now there is 



182 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

no family, however humble, which is not subject to 
these post-mortem maledictions. It is noticeable that 
they are of two kinds : one in which individuals are 
denounced by their full name and address, as though 
the writer were making his will, and exceedingly 
anxious that they should not be excluded from its 
benefits; and the other, wherein he only mentions 
them by their initials — a sort of half-measure by which 
he leaves them to their own unpleasant reflections, but 
spares them the indignation of the world. This milder 
method is, however, accompanied by the disadvantage 
of innocent persons with the same initials — since there 
is always plenty of malicious guessing — being identified 
with the wrongdoers, and suffering, like Mr. Besant's 
hero, who was ' haunted ' by a misinformed spectre for 
a deed which he had never done. I have noted in one 
week no less than three initial denunciations. One 
poor fellow is so soft-hearted in his revenge as to con- 
fine himself to writing the letters ABC, like a pro- 
position in Euclid. The terms in which he expresses 
himself are also exceedingly vague. ' If I had of been 
something like done to by one who could, I should not 
have taken to what I have been forced into.' Whatever 
may be said against this unfortunate person — of whom 
nothing good or bad, however, seems to be known by 
anybody — no one can accuse him of being a Gram- 
marian. 



That large class of our fellow-creatures whose chief 
topic of conversation is ' the weather ' must have had 
a hard time of it of late, as regards variety. In 
Vienna, however, they have got a weather plant to talk 
about, which must be a great relief. It is, we are told, 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 183 

1 a legume ' — a piece of information which, to many 
people, will have the advantage of not disclosing too 
much at once, and thereby spoiling the story; its 
botanical name is the Abrus peregrinus, but it is also 
called the ' paternoster pea,' which, to my ear at least, 
sounds much more familiar. It is published — I mean 
grown — chiefly in Corsica and Tunis ; but they seem 
to have an edition de luxe of it in Vienna. ' Thirty- 
two thousand trials of it in two years,' writes an ex- 
tremely cautious disciple of science, 'tends to prove 
its infallibility.' On the leaves of its upper branches 
one can read the state of the weather forty-eight hours 
in advance, but in those of the lower it is inscribed for 
three days to come. To us in England, it would have 
been useless ; for we have been able, by reasoning from 
analogy, to say l wet ' for the next three months, and 
the prophecy has never failed. Meteorologists tell us 
that the notion of a change of a climate here is all 
rubbish ; but certainly there have been seasons even 
in Scotland, where not only sunshine seems to have 
occurred, but people got so spoilt as to look for the most 
delicate gradations of favorable weather, and, when 
they didn't get them, to apply for them (it strikes one 
rather peremptorily) to the proper quarter. In one of 
the northern counties of Scotland, says Dean Ramsay, 
the minister, in his Sabbath sermon, expressed the needs 
of his agricultural parishioners for a wind to raise the 
corn for the sickle with a very detailed particularity : 
4 O Lord, we pray Thee to send us wind ; no' a rantin', 
tantin', tearin' wind, but a noughin', soughin', wiruin' 
wind.' ' More expressive words,' remarks the Dean, 
' cannot be found in any language,' nor, it may be 
added, words more suggestive of dictation. Our poor 



184 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

farmers in England would certainly have been thank- 
ful most summers for much less — a few hours of sun- 
shine, for example, on alternate days. It is hard to 
have one's holiday spoilt by the weather, but how much 
worse one's harvest ! 



The virtues of hot water have had a great develop- 
ment of late years. People of fashion, whose digestions 
have been impaired, fancy that they still can eat half 
a dozen courses at dinner, if the water they drink with 
them is only hot enough. 4 1 must trouble you,' they 
whisper to their hostess, ; to let it be very hot ; merely 
warm water, you know, has — ahem ! — an unpleasant 
effect.' The water is, therefore, brought as if for shav- 
ing purposes, and generally cracks the tumbler. The 
broken glass in one's pantry which the butler used to 
attribute to ' the cat ' is now set down to the guests 
who adopt this new regime. Another purpose for 
which it is used is to send people to sleep at nignt. It 
is a little inconvenient to have to supply boiling water 
in the small hours of the morning to one's wakeful 
visitors ; but, to do them justice, most of them bring 
spirit-lamps and kettles of their own. I have a private 
suspicion that they put something in the water, to 
induce somnolency ; but, as they bring this with them 
also, that is not my business. The Russians have now 
discovered that hot water has a quieting effect upon 
prisoners who are insubordinate ; by means of a short 
hose, specially made to resist the heat, and attached to 
a steam-pipe nozzle, they squirt boiling water upon the 
offenders, and at once produce peace and quietness (by 
parboiling). The proverbial phrase of being ' in hot 
water ' has, therefore, not so much lost its meaning in 



NOTES FROM THE ( NEWS: 185 

Russia as obtained a precisely contrary signification. 
This will, probably, form a supplementary chapter in 
the next edition of ' The Language of Thought,' and 
need not therefore be here enlarged upon. 



A medical paper furnishes us with the interesting 
information of how a collection for charitable purposes 
is made up from a concert audience of about 10,000 
persons. There were found in the bags 2 sovereigns, 
4 half-sovereigns, 20 florins, 150 shillings, 605 six- 
pences, 706 threepenny-pieces, 6,714 pennies, and 2,224 
halfpennies. It has been found by experience that in 
book-buying (which is the reason why there are so 
many two-shilling novels) a florin is the largest sum 
which the ordinary railway passenger parts with easily ; 
in charity, it seems, the coin is much smaller. Indeed, 
it is rather surprising to observe, in church-going fami- 
lies of means, how very small a sum is generally pro- 
vided beforehand when a sermon 4 for the benefit ' of 
something or other has been announced on the previous 
Sunday. Of course, however, there are exceptions to 
this economical practice. I remember a friend of mine, 
constant in his attendance at what used to be a famous 
1 High Church ' place of worship in Knightsbridge, 
being asked in church, in my presence, by a total 
stranger to lend him his address-card and also a five- 
pound note for the collector. My friend complied ; 
and after church I ventured to point out to him that 
he had been a little imprudent. It would have been 
easy enough to pretend to put something into that 
highly-ornamented velvet bag, and then to withdraw 
it; moreover, the charitable gentleman need not have 
been so eager with his handsome subscription, but 



186 NOTES FBOM THE 'NEWS: 

might have sent his check the next day. My friend 
admitted the cogency of my remarks, and I (being very 
young at the time) congratulated myself not a little 
upon my superior intelligence and forethought. Only, by 
the first post next morning my friend got his money. 
Both these gentlemen were what, of course, would be 
called in the Great Republic 4 champion churchgoers ' ; 
but there are many benighted persons whose only 
notion of orthodoxy is a subscription, not to the Thirty- 
nine Articles, but to the plate. There is a pleasant 
American story of a storm at sea, when matters had 
become so serious that the skipper requested anyone 
acquainted with such matters to conduct a prayer- 
meeting in the chief cabin. Either through ignorance 
or modesty, everyone declined this office ; but one 
gentleman, anxious to do something, however slight, in 
the direction indicated, observed that though preaching 
was out of his line, he would willingly 4 make a Col- 
lection.' 



It is an unfortunate peculiarity of the more combat- 
ive of our philanthropists, and especially of those who 
have been called (not without some justice) Anti-every- 
thingarians, that they seldom trouble themselves to 
study the nature of the subject they assail. They may 
be right enough in their views, but when they give their 
reasons for entertaining them they often show quite a 
curious ignorance of the matter in question and of those 
who practice what is found fault with. The teetotaler, 
for example (as if he had not work enough on his hands 
without making enemies outside the ring of spirit- 
drinkers), almost always falls foul of tobacco as being 
an incentive to intoxication — a statement which, to those 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 187 

acquainted with the subject, does not hold his favorite 
beverage — water. The habitual smoker hardly ever 
drinks, and tobacco has done more to banish wine from 
our dinner-tables than all the arguments that have been 
directed against it. This ignorance is caused, probably, 
by extreme virtue ; the teetotaler knows nothing about 
4 the poison pipe ' and its contents ; but the display of 
it weakens his cause. The Bishop and Chancellor of 
Carlisle have recently been denouncing gambling, and 
with great propriety ; for, next to drink, it is, perhaps, 
the vice that causes the most widespread misery. But 
(what is not surprising, perhaps, in a Bishop and a dio- 
cesan Chancellor) they do not seem very well acquainted 
with what they denounce. They contend that its im- 
morality consists in the fact that ' money passes from 
one man to another with a dead loss to one, and an un- 
reasonable gain to another.' This may be said of ' three- 
penny whist ' (and even that great moralist, Dr. John- 
son, expressed his contempt for playing at cards 4 for 
nothing ' as being a sheer waste of time) or of a bet of 
a pair of gloves with a lady. No person of common- 
sense would call this 'gambling,' any more than specu- 
lating in a raffle, which the Bishop admits he has done — 
though with an unsatisfactory result. The simple fact 
is that the proper definition of gambling is, playing for 
more than we can afford. Penny points at whist may 
be gambling in a very poor man, and pound points not 
be gambling in a rich one. When the game ceases to 
be an amusement from the size of the stake, and the 
stake, and not the game, is the attraction, then, and 
then only, gambling begins. The next greatest gamblers 
to the bookmakers on the turf, and the City clerks and 
small tradesmen who are ruined by them and led into 



188 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

crime, are often our bankers and merchant princes, who, 
though they never bet a shilling", ' back their own opin- 
ion' in their ' operations ' with a freedom rarely seen at 
Doncaster or Ascot ; their success in this is termed 
; commercial enterprise.' 



A great French critic has been placing on record his 
views of cruelty, and a still greater English one (if I 
recognize his Roman — and Grecian — hand) has been 
commenting on them. They are neither of them in favor 
of cruelty, which, considering their profession, is very 
creditablele to them ; but the former states his hatred of 
it to be so extreme that he 4 cannot be cruel even to the 
cruel.' If he means that he prefers someone else instead 
of himself to hang them, I sympathize with him ; but if 
he means that he would not have them hanged at all, 
I differ from him. There is a vaulting Philanthropy 
that overleaps itself and falls on the other side, and in 
its hatred of brutality encourages the Brutal. I have 
no doubt that there are people who would find excuses 
for Mary's Chancellor, who, history tells us, incensed 
by the obstinacy of Anne Askew, cast off his mantle, 
and, ' plying the rack with his own hands, almost tore 
her asunder ' ; but such apologists, while imagining 
themselves charitable, are in reality callous. Moreover, 
really tender-hearted persons are often ignorant of the 
worst attributes of human nature. Without at all 
agreeing with Dr. Bain, in his recent assertion that the 
sentiment of Malignity is universal, it is much more 
widespread than is imagined. I remember a speech 
made by Michael Davitt, much to his honor, denounc- 
ing in the most scathing terms the practice, then only 
too prevalent, of the mutilation of dumb animals, which 



NOTES FROM THE 'NETVS: 189 

was listened to by a large audience without a single ex- 
pression of sympathy. About the same time a 4 Lady ' 
wrote a letter, and got a newspaper to publish it, point- 
ing out that there were still cows with their tails on. 
The existence of such persons would probably be in- 
credible to the French critic, who could not read the 
martyrdoms in the 4 lives of the saints ' without his 
heart seeming to be crushed in a vice ; but 4 shut the 
book, and dared not open it again.' 



The English critic, with the remembrance, no doubt, 
in his mind of how he had himself occasionally disem- 
bowelled an author — though with as much tenderness 
and much more grace than old Izaak treated his worm 
— denounces this as a sign of weakness, and then goes 
on to inquire whether we have gained much, or even 
have not lost more than we have gained, by the discon- 
tinuance of torture for the extraction of evidence, and 
of the good old customs of bull-baiting, badger-draw- 
ing, and cock-fighting. ' Does not all our loathing of 
the Terrible arise,' he asks, ' from the failure of the 
national nerve ? ' I answer, ' No. In the whole history 
of our nation I do not believe nobler or more disin- 
terested acts of heroism are recorded than have hap- 
pened within the last half -century.' Moreover, I venture 
to differ from him in his bringing forward, apparently 
as evidence of brutality, such an incident as that of 
Walter Scott making one of a party to see Burke 
hanged. Why should he not have made sure with his 
own eyes of the extinction of one of the most cruel 
wretches that ever disgraced human form? What sen- 
timent of tenderness or pity could such a spectacle 
have evoked ? Our critic cannot imagine any man of 



190 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.* 

letters in the present day attending a similar spectacle. 
Yet Charles Dickens, one of the kindest-hearted of 
men, went to see an execution. I feel this rather a 
personal matter, for I myself went — in the interests of 
literature, of course, and not like your Lord Tom 
Noddy, but still I went— to see the Malay crew of the 
Flowery Land hanged at Newgate. They had thrown 
their captain and officers (with whom they had no fault 
to find) into the sea, and pelted them as they were 
drowning with champagne bottles. Two of the mildest 
of these ruffians had been reprieved, of whom the 
Sheriff told me this story : * When the Governor came 
to break the news to them, expecting the usual expres- 
sions of gratitude and penitence, one of them observed, 
" Since Antonio is to be put away, I hope you will let 
me have his shoes, as they exactly fit me." ; I trust 
my nature is not brutal, but I cannot say that the spec- 
tacle of Antonio and the rest being removed from the 
world deeply affected me. I am now too old for sensa- 
tional experiences ; but I believe I could still see the 
Whitechapel murderer hanged without one tributary 
tear. 



Mr. Fukntss, though he makes such excellent fun 
of portrait-painters, seems to take the art himself more 
seriously than most people. From my own experience 
of it, I have always thought that it was more serious 
for the sitter than for the painter ; but this is not, it 
seems, at all the case. 4 To paint a man rightly,' he 
says, 'you should live with him as a Japanese artist 
lives with the flower he sketches, and watch him when 
utterly un conscious.' This reminds me of a still more 
aesthetic person, who has informed us that ' to properly 



NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 191 

paint a tree it is necessary that we should become a 
tree ' — with, I suppose, a bark. It does not seem to 
have occurred to Mr. Furniss that it is not everybody 
who could stand a portrait-painter always at his elbow 
i looking out for characteristic expressions. For my 
part, if I am to believe a distinguished artist who once 
did me the honor of painting me, I lose, after a sitting 
of five minutes, all resemblance to humanity. 4 My 
good sir,' he used to remonstrate, ' you are completely 
gone ; you have no face ! ' As to watching me ' when 
I was utterly unconscious,' if that was the opportunity 
he desired, he had plenty of them. If his price was 
high, on the other hand I cost him a good deal in 
cigarettes, coffee, and liqueur-restoratives. 



At the Church Congress it was objected by a Divine, 
who, unless very unselfish, must look forward to being 
a Bishop, that candidates for confirmation are apt to 
put a great deal of grease on their heads, to the incon- 
venience of the officiating Prelate. It is not, of course, 
an agreeable custom, but it is well intended. In the 
country especially, young people would as soon think 
of attending church in their workaday clothes as without 
some capillary ointment, though it may not be a capil- 
lary attraction to others. The rite in question, albeit 
imperfectly understood, and ignorantly prized as a 
remedy for other than spiritual complaints, is thought 
highly of by the agricultural class. I once saw a 
Berkshire carter-boy insist upon its being conferred 
upon him, in spite of the most strenuous ecclesiastical 
opposition. As he was making his way to join the 
kneeling line, the Bishop's chaplain stopped him with 
silvery voice : ' Stay, my'lad ; you have been confirmed 



192 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

already/ 'No, I hasn't.' 'But, indeed, I think you 
have.' To make sure he went up to the Bishop, who 
thought he remembered the boy's face. ' Yes, my lad, 
you are mistaken; his Lordship says he has already 
confirmed you.' ' Ee lies,' was the confident reply ; 
and, indeed, so far as it was possible for a Bishop to be 
in error, it turned out that his Lordship was so. In 
old times it was not bear's grease that the Fathers of 
the Church objected to, but false hair. ' If you will 
not fling away your false hair, as hateful to Heaven,' 
says Tertullian, 'cannot I make it hateful to yourself 
by reminding you that the false hair you wear may 
have come from the Ivead of one already damned ? ' 
Clemens of Alexandria was more judicious, if less 
vehement in his denunciation: 'When you kneel- to 
receive the blessing, my brethren, you must be good 
enough to remember that the benediction remains on 
the wig and does not pass through to the wearer.' 
Perhaps there was a trade in wigs that had been 
blessed ! 



It was not concerning false but gray hair that Russell 
of the Scotsman made his famous saying. A contem- 
porary had remarked to him that, though it was true 
he was growing gray, he had not grown bald, as Russell 
had done. ' That's true,' admitted the latter ; ' my hair 
preferred death to dishonor.' Of course, there may be 
too much of a good thing ; but it is generally admitted 
that partial baldness gives the appearance of intelligence. 
In a recent description of the great swindler Allmayer, 
I read that he had ' that slight tendency to baldness 
which often goes with elegant manners.' I am afraid 
this observation was caused by some confusion in the 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 193 

writer's mind between elegant manners and i polish.' 
A head on the road to baldness may be rough enough, 
but when it has reached maturity — when its proprietor 
brushes it with his hat on, for instance, which is a sure 
sign — it almost always presents a smooth and brilliant 
surface, on which the eye lights yet does not linger, 
but, like i the bird, o'er lustrous woodland,' slides away. 
But as for temper, if elegant manners have anything to 
do with that, I confess that 1 have no confidence in 
baldness. -On the stage, too, which is supposed to 
hold the mirror up to Nature, the most irascible of 
grumpy uncles, the most peppery of Indian Colonels, 
are always bald. It is not generally known that bald- 
ness lends itself to caricature of a very peculiar kind. 
I was once staying in a country house, where an 
eminent portrait-painter, the late Sir George Hayter, 
came down to paint the host and hostess. One evening, 
after dinner, the Knight, who was a humorist in his 
way, persuaded a good-natured fellow-guest, who was 
very bald, to submit himself to his pencil. On the 
back of his head he drew a human countenance, which 
what hair there was there set off charmingly as whiskers. 
He became literally a double-faced man ; and when we 
put his coat on hindside before, and led him into the 
drawing-room backwards, he made a more striking 
impression on the ladies than he had ever done before 
— that is, previously. 

A clergyman who took up the case of Father 
Damien, the priest who, in ministering to the lepers 
became a leper himself, has written to the papers to 
complain how small have been the sums subscribed by 
the class which calls itself 4 Society.' He is surprised 



194 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

at this, lie says, because lie has so constantly heard rich 
people express their opinion that the poor leper priest 
was the 'greatest saint living.' This, however, he 
ought to have known, is a very different thing from 
their subscribing to him. The simplicity of this good 
clergyman is, indeed, almost as touching as his appeal 
itself. 'Society so-called,' he writes, 'subscribed 
almost nil, but bigotry was entirely absent' (by which 
he means that it was present enough, but gave no 
contributions). 'Both these facts are instructive.' 
Certainly they are, but only to one who has never 
studied human nature. Whenever I see one of those 
severe leading articles against money given in charity 
I welcome' it, for it bestows happiness on the greatest 
number — the people that never give anything to any- 
body, and are delighted to find their parsimony 
defended. 'Among the people who in the sixth 
century,' writes a well-known philosopher, 'were con- 
verted to the Christian faith were two tribes, called the 
Lazi and the Zani. Methinks it would have been 
better if they had been left unconverted, for they have 
multiplied prodigiously.' 

A well-known Professor of the healing art has 
been giving a lecture to medical youth upon the value 
of attention. Many, he says, who plead their ' bad 
memory ' as an excuse for ignorance, do so on false 
grounds ; they have not forgotten, but, through inatten- 
tion, have never learnt. This is admirably true, and 
what he goes on to say about the same fault when they 
have ceased to be medical students and have become 
practitioners is, doubtless, true also — only to us laymen 
much more alarming. It seems that it is by no means 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 195 

uncommon for our medical adviser to visit us with a 
preoccupied mind ; while we are telling him about our 
symptoms, and eloquent upon the size and color of our 
great toe, he may be thinking about the next Derby, 
or the hue of the new dado in his dining-room. This, 
says the Professor, is very dangerous — that is, for the 
doctor, of course. ' All men are thought-readers, and 
our patients more so than any others.' It is not neces- 
sary for the doctor to mechanically murmur, ' It ought 
to be green,' to convince an intelligent patient that he 
is not thinking about his toe. Again, what is called 'a 
nervous operator,' remarks the Professor, 'is simply 
one who cannot bring his attention to bear upon a 
difficulty that suddenly arises.' Instead of cutting 
one's leg off, for example, the lilt of some grand old 
song, I suppose, beloved in infancy, may vaguely float 
into his mind, and his knife become, as it were, a tuning- 
fork. Being under chloroform, the patient would, of 
course, be unconscious of this distraction of the sur- 
geon's mind ; but it is just possible it might interfere 
with the success of the operation. 



If the Professor were not as honest as he is scien- 
tific he might have given us some hints as to the simu- 
lation of attention, which would be invaluable to his 
fellow-creatures, whether they belong to the medical 
profession or otherwise. How difficult it is to listen to a 
bore with any semblance of interest, however impor- 
tant it may be for us to do so ! He may be the father 
of the girl we want to marr} T , or we may owe him money, 
or he may be the editor of the magazine to which we 
wish to contribute, and yet, as he bores on and on, we 
are conscious that our eyes are growing lack-lustre, and 



196 NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 

reveal the palsy that is attacking our vitals. If this good 
Professor would give us something to make us look 
bright and pleased under an infliction of this kind for 
twenty minutes at a stretch, that would be a prescrip- 
tion indeed. Somebody advertises his pills, ' No more 
disease or death ; well worth five shillings a box ' ; but 
pills that could be conscientiously trade-marked *No 
more necessity for counterfeiting attention ' would be 
worth any money. They would have to be taken on 
the sly, of course, as people take dinner-pills; but 
who would have scruples about duplicity when under 
the harrow of an art critic or a china maniac ? Even 
Emperors experience the need of some anodyne (or, 
rather, ansesthetic) of this kind. The most amusing 
incident in the progress of the Emperor of Germany 
through Europe is the account of his being shown the 
objects of art and antiquity (for which he doesn't care 
sixpence) in the Museum and Basilica at Rome. The 
poor young- fellow, we are told, rushed through the 
halls and through the church, repeating always : 4 1 
shall return ; I shall return ' in a loud voice ; but adding 
to himself softly, we may be sure : * Not if I know it,' 
or ' If I do I'm a Dutchman,' or, more probably, 'a 
Frenchman.' The alternative suggestion that he meant 
4 1 shall return and take them'' (as another Emperor did 
who had a greater turn for bric-a-brac), offered by 
a cynical friend, is one, I am thankful to say, that 
could never have entered into my head. 



Everyone (I hope) remembers how the vulgar per- 
sons who ventured to express a doubt that because a 
thing was written in Greek and two or three thousand 
years ago, it was not on that account necessarily worth 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 197 

reading, were put to the rout by the publication of a 
volume called i Greek Wit ' — a striking example indeed 
of how a very small thing can put some people down. 
The quotations were all assigned to their proper authors 
(including the oft-cited 4 Ibid '), so that the most ignor- 
ant of us learnt to whom he was indebted for each spark- 
ling sally. Sometimes quite a galaxy of great names 
were included in a single illustration, when the bril- 
liancy of the story was, of course, proportionably daz- 
zling. As, for example : ' Antagoras, the poet, was 
cooking a conger eel, and holding the pan himself, when 
Antigonus came behind him, and asked : " Do you sup- 
pose Homer, when he was writing Agamemnon's deeds, 
cooked a conger 9 " "Sir," replied the other, "do you 
suppose Agamemnon, the doer of such deeds, troubled 
himself to inquire whether any of his men cooked con- 
gers in camp." : Of course, ' Greek Wit ' is not always 
of this side-splitting description ; human nature could 
not have stood it, but must have burst blood-vessels in 
its mirth. Some of the humor is quite of a material 
kind (though full of philosophy), and — to compare 
great things with small — has an affinity with our humble 
4 practical jokes.' Alcibiades, having bought a remark- 
ably handsome dog for a large sum, cut off its tail. 
4 This I do,' said he, 4 that the Athenians may talk about 
it, and not concern themselves with any other acts of 
mine.' Even a person who has not received a classical 
education will be able to appreciate the vigorous droll- 
ery of the above anecdote ; but there are other stories 
in the collection of much greater subtlety, the full 
aroma of which, perhaps, demands for its conveyance 
the unrivalled faculty of expression of the Greek aorist. 
For example : • Philip once gave away a favorite horse 



198 NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 

that had been badly wounded. The man sold him, and 
on being asked some time afterwards by the generous 
Monarch, " Where's your horse ? " he replied : " He is 
sold of his wound." ' Admirable as this is as it stands, 
something seems to have escaped in translation. The 
following, however, one of the many charming stories 
from Plutarch, is perfectly intelligible (and only to 
think that it might have been burnt or mislaid, like 
the Sibylline Books and other works of antiquity, and 
never come down to us !) : ' Alcibiades, going to school, 
asked for Homer's " Iliad." ' We don't keep Homer 
here," said the schoolmaster. Alcibiades knocked him 
down, and went on.' To extract more beauties from 
4 Greek Wit ' would be to rob the dead, or, rather, the 
Immortals. ' There are positively none in the collection 
(which seems exhaustive) much inferior to those I have 
ventured to quote. 



Having performed this good office to classical wit 
—so far as the Greek prose-writers were concerned — 
the English editor has now favored the unlearned 
public with selections from the Greek comic poets. 
We read how everybody (who is anybody) roars over 
the Westminster Play (' The Frogs,' you know, and 
so on — not ' The Boys and the Frogs,' but the other), 
and why, says this good fellow to himself, should not 
the poor people who have been brought up in the 
4 Modern ' schools, and even commercial academies, 
learn to appreciate what their betters enjoy so? Every- 
one has heard of Menander, but only a favored few 
have hitherto been in a position to relish his amazing 
wit: 

That wine of yours to queer sensations leads, 
I thought this morning I had got four heads. 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. ' 199 

This, it is true, is the very best of the poet's wit- 
ticisms, but how excellent ! And, of course, how new ! 
These authors were not like the miserable wits of to- 
day, who can never hit on anything novel. They had 
all the world (of subjects) before them where to choose, 
so that (if a word of detraction is permissible) their 
complete success is not, perhaps, after all, so wonderful. 
Long before the Daily Telegraph exploited the topic, 
Menander wrote of wedlock : 

Marriage, if truth be told (of this be sure), 
An evil is — but one we must endure. 

What must have enhanced the charm of these 
ancient utterances is that they are almost all longer in 
Greek — the linked sweetness more drawn out — than 
they are in English. Many persons, I trust, for hie 
name is in the Scriptures, have heard of Philemon ; but 
that was not the Philemon who wrote the following 
epigram : 

1 Hail, father !' when a crab was served, Agyrrhius said ; and rather 
Than such a prize should wasted be, preferred to eat his father. 

This witticism, with which I conclude, reminds one 
of what Cheirisophus said to his patron Dionysius when 
asked why he laughed at a joke, when he was too far 
off to catch it. ' Well I saw you laughing at it, and 
trusted to you for the joke being a good one.' Sim- 
ilarly, we have now and then to trust to the English 
editor for the goodness of his Greek jokes. There is 
no question, as I understand, among scholars but that 
he has rendered them admirably. And notwithstand- 
ing our boasted march of intellect, and all the rest of 
it, I doubt whether the contents of either volume can 
be much surpassed by the wit of the first Shakespearian 



200 NOTES FROM TEE 'NEWS.' 

clown in any travelling circus in the United Kingdom. 
If the Wisdom of the ancient Greeks is on a par with 

their Wit, or anything like it but the English Editor 

has probably got that in hand by this time, and I will 
not anticipate the treat he must needs have in store 
for us ! 



It must be a satisfaction to those who are tied 
and bound by literary dogma to hear a man of 
undoubted genius like Mr. Stevenson expressing his 
opinion freely upon subjects about which, though 
(like the parrot) they may ' think the more,' they 
dare not open their mouths, and it will be a boon, 
indeed, if his example emboldens them to say what 
they like and dislike in literature, or, at all events, 
to cease from pretending to likes and dislikes. The 
hypocritical subserviency that is so manifest in the 
world of art is hardly less general, though it is much 
less obvious, than in that of letters ; when what is 
generally understood by criticism has decided that 
this or that is to be admired, the question is held to 
be settled ; let no dog henceforth bark, but only 
cringingly wag his tail. Matthew Arnold was a ter- 
ror to those who held, but did not dare express, 
an independent opinion. He was a sort of policeman 
of literature, bidding them ' move on ' from what they 
would fain have lingered over, and turn their atten- 
tion to what he affirmed was alone worthy of it. 
To appreciate the freshness and vigor of ' The Lays 
of Ancient Rome ' was, in his view, a proof of vulgar- 
ity ; and to prefer Shelley's poetry to his prose showed 
want of taste. Such statements would be amazing 
if they were peculiar to himself; but other able 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 201 

writers who have taken upon themselves the office of 
school-master, before his time, have fallen into similar 
errors. Dr. Johnson could see nothing in Gray's 
'Elegy,' and Macaulay little to admire in 'Martin 
Chuzzlewit.' The two points that need to be borne in 
mind, in consideration of this matter, are — first, that 
criticism itself is not an exact science ; and secondly, 
that men of great literary powers have, like everybody 
else, their deficiencies. 

Flogging, or, as it is called at Eton, 'swishing,' 
is to be abolished at that aristocratic seminary, except 
for 'really serious offences.' It was, indeed, high 
time. The frequency of its infliction, for the smallest 
crimes, if it had occurred in a Board-school, would 
have set the democracy in a flame ; but the ' blood of 
all the Howards has taken it very coolly for cen- 
turies. An illustration in any pictorial paper of the 
actual ceremony would probably have put an end to 
it at any time — and also to the paper. What old 
Etonian can forget the first time he received notice 
in the class-room to ' stay ' after school ? That was 
the euphonious phrase which appointed your inter- 
view with the Head-Master. All your friends — and, 
of course, your enemies — ' stayed ' too, to see it. I dare 
not lift the veil ( it was the privilege, by-the-bye, of two 
young gentlemen on the foundation to do that, or an 
analogous office) from the subsequent proceedings, 
from which there was but one appeal : ' Please, sir ; 
first fault ! ' How well I remember old Hawtrey, birch 
in hand, and gold pencil-case around his neck, inquiring 
into this vital matter. ' He thinks he has seen the 
culprit's face ( or other portion of him ) before ; but 



202 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS* 

he will examine the books.' The humor of the scene, 
to all but the chief person concerned, was admirable ; 
but more suited to Fielding's time than ours. I think 
Mr. Stevenson would have classed it with some inci- 
dents in ' Tom Jones.' There was something pathetic, 
nevertheless, about that appeal of ' first fault,' which 
(except where the offender was lying ) was always 
allowed, if proved to be genuine. It is not so except 
at Eton. First faults are not, elsewhere, so easily for- 
given ; or the first fault is too often, alas, the last, 
because the next is a crime. There was general 
disappointment if Justice was thus robbed of her prey. 
It was on the second occasion of offence when the 
spectators were most gratified. The execution was 
then certain to come off, and the culprit was not inno- 
cent, of course, but — tender ; perhaps even alarmed, 
which enhanced the public enjoyment immensely '. I 
suppose half the Cabinet have been flogged in their 
time at Eton, and half the leaders of the Opposition. 
Only think of it ! Gracious goodness ! 



Medical science would charm us more by its new 
discoveries if they did not so often consist in merely 
effacing the old ones. Every 'treatment' has its day, 
and is hailed with enthusiasm ; it is then found to be the 
worst thing that could have been hit upon, and its 
exact opposite is adopted with the same loud cries of 
'Eureka!' How marry times have the terms 'kill' or 
4 cure ' been applied to the same remedies for gout, I 
wonder? How many times have our great medicine 
men blown ' hot ' and ' cold ' in the matter of the best 
climate for consumption? The last discovery is that 
the notion of ' constant support ' to produce nourish- 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 203 

ment is an error. The proper way, it now appears, is 
to starve and stuff : ' Hunger first, and plenty after.' 
We are told that 4 a time of starvation puts the organ- 
ism in a position to make the most of everything that 
enters it.' This I can believe ; in a boat full of ship- 
wrecked persons scantily supplied with provisions, 
4 everything ' — if there is any organization at all — ' is 
made the most of.' At the same time my experience 
of people who take but one meal a day, and eat enor- 
mously at that, is that their tempers, at least, are not 
well nourished. They are generally cross and snappish 
as feeding time approaches, and only agreeable after- 
wards in a negative way : they throw their handker- 
chief over their faces and snore. If, instead of these 
contradictory discoveries, our physicians would be so 
good as to make castor oil less loathsome, and physic, 
generally, more palatable, I should have a higher 
opinion of their intelligence. It is monstrous that a 
calling which claims to be scientific should have nothing 
to offer its patients but drugs the smell and taste of 
which cause the modern artist, in his house-boat on the 
Thames, the same shuddering horrors that Noah prob- 
ably experienced from his rhubarb and senna in the 
ark. The one poor triumph of medicine, as yet, in 
this way (for it takes an alligator to swallow the 
k globule ') is the silvered pill — surely a small harvest 
to be reaped from four thousand years of professional 
practice ! 



Copenhagen has set a fashion which London, I fear, 
will be slow to follow. Instead of the expensive 
wreaths which it is our barbarous fashion to throw into 
the earth upon the coffins of our friends, the pious 



204 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 

Danes place offerings much more appropriate to the 
dead. These are tablets which represent some sub- 
scription, according to the means of the donor, towards 
the abatement of human suffering. The originator of 
this idea recommends it to us in very touching words. 
4 In the great country of love there are no frontiers ; 
there is no difference between great nations and small; 
in this respect we ought to assist one another in word 
and deed. Bearing this in view, we have resolved to 
acquaint you with what has been done in Denmark.' 
(If he errs, it is on the side of simplicity. What I 
have ventured to call ' tablets ' he calls 4 cards.' I 
don't like the notion of throwing cards into a grave ; 
in some cases it might be too appropriate ; no, 'no 
cards.') This linking of regret with charity is a 
method of keeping the memory green far better, surely, 
than the ordering of a pound's-worth of sympathy at 
the flower-shop. ' The actions of the just smell sweet 
and blossom in the dust ' (as flowers born to bloom 
above the earth, not under it, can never do), and such 
a custom is typical of them. If thank-offerings are 
gracious things, this way of c honoring the dead by 
good works ' is surely more so. If our lost friend was 
not prone to charitable deeds himself, he will not take 
it as a sarcasm, nor will it be the first time that his 
charity has been done by proxy : the idea is so pious, 
so useful, and so unostentatious (for the amount of the 
subscriptions is not read out by the undertaker) that 
there is, I fear, but slender hope of its being substituted 
for camellias from the conservatory or roses from Nice, 
witli the names of the donors printed in the fashionable 
journals ; but I venture to think it a good idea. 






NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 205 

Even the London world will miss for a while one of 
its most striking figures in that of Sir Francis Hastings 
Doyle, a true poet (if but of limited range) and genuine 
humorist. He was one of the kindliest-natured men 
with whose friendship I have been ever honored, and 
in some respects he has not left his like. In politics 
he was a Tory, 'a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,' 
but the most pleasant of Pagans; the charm, too, of his 
conversation and manners was an Old World charm. 
He was a raconteur of the ancient type, full of anecdote 
and personal reminiscence, hut also (which is a very 
different thing) a most agreeable conversationalist. He 
did not ignore the present for the past, as is the case 
with so many men of his years. His University career 
was brilliant. He had afterwards mingled with all the 
men and women of the century who were best worth 
knowing, and remembered what was interesting about 
them, and not the rest. What was also unusual, his 
acquaintance had been very various : he knew almost 
as much of jockeys as of the great patrons of the Turf; 
unlike another more famous litterateur, who once con- 
fessed to me that he 'never felt so comfortable as when 
he had his legs under the mahogany of a person of 
quality,' he had hobbed and nobbed with everybody. 
Nothing of human nature was alien to him. One might 
almost say the same of equine nature. I never knew a 
man of so great an intelligence so fond of horses. Those 
who have read his noble poem (for it really deserves 
that epithet) on the Doncaster St. Leger, will easily 
credit this. He had of late years domestic misfor- 
tunes, in addition to much physical ailment. 4 How 
fond and foolish is the idea,' he once said to me, 'that 
when we are old we are less sensitive to calamities ; we 



206 NOTES FiLOM THE 'NEWS. 






are only, alas ! less able to bear them.' Yet he was 
always courageous ; he came ' smiliug,' as he would 
have himself expressed it, ' up to time.' The last letter 
I had from him after he became paralyzed in his speech 
is at least as full of humor as pathos. 'Being deaf, and 
blind, and speechless,' he says, ' 1 can now scarcely be 
considered an ornament to dinner-parties ; and in reply 
to invitations shall henceforth send my photograph.' 
The heart he wore upon his sleeve was as brave as it 
was kind. 

In the late interesting communications from eminent 
persons respecting the literature that is best for us all 
to read, whether we like it or not, there was generally 
a reference to the books that have shaped their lives. 
From it we learn how ' Blobbs on Three-Quarter 
Immersion ' gave grace to one, and ' Xenophon's Mem- 
orabilia ' philosophy to another. (Not a word, how- 
ever, about banker's books or betting-books, which 
shape a good many people's lives without giving them 
the curve of beauty.) Of course there is something in 
it. A young man — or, for that matter, an old one — 
must be worthless indeed who can read (to take unam- 
bitious examples to which the eminent persons would 
scorn to stoop) 'The Christmas Carol' or 'Little Lord 
Fauntleroy ' without feeling some desire for good stir 
within him that may be more or less permanent. When 
I read the 'Arabian Nights' (at seven), I remember 
that I made up my mind to be a merchant trading 
between London and Bussorah (with the agency in 
London, and the residence at Bussorah) in gold and 
precious stones; but somehow — perhaps, because I had 
no gold to start with — the idea evaporated. This is 



2T0TES FJIOM TJffE 'NEWS.' 207 

the case with most good books; their teaching evapo- 
rates, while, on the other hand, that of the bad ones 
remains. Of course, one only reads bad books— -like 
M. Zola's— for literary purposes, to understand his 
4 school,' and be in a position to denounce it, or other 
praiseworthy motive; but it is much better to let them 
alone. 

The scrofulous French novel 

On gray paper with hlunt type ! 
Simply glance at it, you grovel 

Hand and foot in Belial's gripe. 

And he doesn't let go of you in a hurry. It is most 
humiliating to both writer and reader, but also very 
true, that the influence of a base book lasts infinitely 
longer than that of a noble one, and may even undo 
the good that all the noble ones have done for you 
before you read it. A curious example of this has just 
been afforded by that of a foot-page who became a foot- 
pad (or something like it) by reading a novel. Up to 
that date the page was clean, innocent as the new-fallen 
snow. His character was exemplary, he attended 
church, and was only waiting to be old enough to be 
confirmed. Unlike Mrs. Wititterley's page, he was 
more like an ' Alphonse ' than a plain Bill. But during 
the Christmas holidays he read Slack Sheppard,' and 
before the snowdrop appeared he had committed two 
burglaries. I wonder whether it was Mr. Ainsworth's 
story or the penny novelette of the same name that 
changed him ? The former I read without the slightest 
after-inclination to break into anybody's house ; but 
some people are born so much better than others. 



There has been a robbery at a post-office by some 



208 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

individual who broke through the roof, which does not 
affect me (though of course I am sorry) so much as 
the remarks that have been made upon it. Nothing is 
more common, a daily paper assures us — if such 'a 
statement can be called assuring — than this mode of 
ingress. 4 To come through the tiles and into the 
upper rooms of a house while the occupants are all be- 
low, can be done very quietly, and by a very simple 
and ingenious mode of procedure well known to the 
police. ' Good Heavens ! What mode ? I really 
think the writer might have been a little more explicit. 
There was an article in a magazine last month which 
stated that there was no journalist in England who 
would hesitate to publish anything to increase the cir- 
culation of his paper, no matter how ruinous the dis- 
closure might be to the country at large. I didn't 
agree with it, but certainly here is a case of a journalist 
not publishing what it is highly desirable for every 
householder to know. I have heard that the British 
Workman is apt to loosen a tile or two when he gets 
(for quite other purposes) to the top of one's house ; 
but that is surely only for the good of trade, not for 
the convenience of the burglar. The system as a sys- 
tem is quite new to me ; but the incident reminds me 
of a novel, which, when I read it, I thought the most 
exciting that was ever penned. It was the very first 
of the 4 Sensation Novels ' ; its title ' Paul Periwinkle, 
or the Press-gang,' and it was, I think, dedicated to 
Thackeray. The hero, who has betrayed some bush- 
rangers, is hunted by two negroes of the gang with 
bloodhounds, and after four-and-twenty-hours' chase 
just manages to reach a settler's cottage. 4 You are 
safe enough here,' says his host, '« for I have four sons 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 209 

six feet high to guard you.' He is lodged in an attic 
chamber and falls into a death-like slumber from fatigue, 
when the two negroes, using no doubt ' the ingenious 
mode of procedure so well known to the police' (but 
not to the settler), break through the roof and abstract 
him. 



T^ere have lately appeared, both in this country 
and America, certain so-called reminiscences of Charles 
Dickens, purporting to be written by persons who 
knew him well ; but, to all who did so know him, mani- 
festly false and venomous. That he was not as these 
writers depict him it is hardly necessary to point out 
to the readers of Dickens, for his works witness for 
him ; but it is well that they should have testimony to 
the same effect from one who enjoyed his friendship. 
In some particulars these libels overshoot their mark 
in a manner which, if their target were not a dead man, 
would be ludicrous, indeed. I am told that the latest 
addition to this slough of slander even accuses him of 
moroseness and illiberality. This reminds me of what 
Mr. Harold Skimpole, in his autobiography, is made to 
say of his benefactor. ' Jarndyce, in common with 
most other men I have known, was the Incarnation of 
Selfishness.' A more genial and openhearted man 
than Charles Dickens I never met. It is not strange 
that the memory of one so exceptionally bright and 
who has done more to brighten the lives of others 
than any writer, should be selected as a spawning- 
ground by Malice and Envy. It is the instinct of some 
creatures to defile what is fairest and rarest, and of 
other creatures to take pleasure in the spectacle. The 
snail, it was believed of old, « doth disdain all common 

14 



210 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 

stones if it can find lapis lazuli to crawl and slime 
upon.' 



There are three ladies in America who make a pro- 
fession of teaching whist. If there were but a fourth — 
for one cannot imagine any lady playing 4 dummy ' — 
they would form the most charming rubber in the world. 
But of course these blessings to civilization are scattered 
over the United States, like missionaries; only, instead 
of forming congregations, they 'establish whist-centres.' 
I hope also they have another institution in common 
with missionary enterprise — that of 4 making a collec- 
tion ' ; for the laborer in every field is worthy of his 
hire. We learn from the Milwaukee Sentinel that that 
town rejoices in the presence of the most eminent of 
these three lady professors. The Milwaukee young 
women, of whom no less than 193 are, or have been 
her p'upils, are as distinguished in this branch of science 
as are our own Girton and Newnham girls in other 
branches. Their i head ' — to use the term employed in, 
4 The Princess ' for the lady who occupied a somewhat 
similar position — has written treatises on whist, we are 
told, ' for several railroad companies for issuance in book 
form.' It would therefore seem that these students are 
so eager to attain proficiency that they even play in 
the trains. This is diligence indeed ; and it is humil- 
iating to reflect that if they followed this wholesome 
and delightful pursuit in our own country, they might 
be taken up, under a by-law, and prosecuted as card- 
sharpers. I noticed only last week, an indignant letter 
from some morose traveller on the Brighton railway, 
demanding to know why this law was not enforced, and 
the whist-players — the spectacle of whose simple enjoy- 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 211 

ment had stirred his bile— were not thrown into dun- 
geons. But in Milwaukee — rather a faster place, one 
would think, than its name suggests — there is Liberty, 
though no licence (unless I have been misinformed) for 
spirituous liquors. What I would like to read, even 
more than this professor's treatises, would be her 
educational experiences. 



I have tried to teach young ladies whist myself — 
of course I played (and I venture to hope there was 
reciprocity in the stake) for love — but with rather un- 
successful results. They did not say, as I once heard a 
well-known philosopher observe, when compelled to 
make up a rubber, 4 1 protest, at starting, against any 
inference being drawn by my partner from any card I 
may happen to play,' but it was evidently on that un- 
derstanding that they proceeded. Unlike him, however, 
they always professed to know the game : ' We are not 
scientific players, you know, as we want to become ; 
but we have family whist at home.' Do your people 
play the penultimate ? ' I once inquired of one of them. 
4 Not that I know of,' she answered (very sweetly, but 
with some of that 4 amazement ' which is so deprecated 
in the marriage service). ' Sophie plays the piano, and 
Julia the harp ; but none of us play the penultimate.' 
It was one of my chief difficulties that I could not pre- 
vent my pupils' thoughts from straying from the matter 
in hand into distant spheres. I could never make them 
perceive the conventional invitation for trumps. 4 You 
didn't notice my ask-for-trumps ? ' I would sometimes 
delicately observe, when all had been lost through that 
neglect. My fair partners would only smile (which, 
however, I need not say was recompense enough for 



212 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 9 

me) and shake their pretty heads : one of them replied, 
' 1 never heard you.' My best pupil used to boast that 
she could ' always see a " picture peter ";' but she 
couldn't. As for asking for trumps themselves, to give 
you an idea of how they grasped the meaning of it — 
not that they were stupid (they were as sharp as 
needles, only some other magnet than the game of 
whist was always attracting them) — one of them once 
said to me, 'Why should I have asked? I had plenty 
of them.' In Milwaukee — whose whist-club is, we are 
told, the largest in the West — its lady professor may 
not have had these difficulties to overcome; or, as is 
very probable, she was much sharper with her pupils 
than I ever dared, or wished, to be; but her experience 
with them would be very interesting, and, for once, a 
novel contribution to the great female educational 
movement. 

Justice to jurymen ' would not be a bad cry to go 
to the country with — and also the town. There is, 
very properly, much sympathy expressed for the unem- 
ployed, but very little for this unhappy class, who are 
employed but don't want to be. They are summoned 
in the most violent and offensive terms that the Law 
can devise, though (because in this case she is not paid 
for tediousness) in unusually curt ones, and with a 
vague threat ( i whereof fail not') to conclude with. 
The affair is so managed that the greatest possible 
inconvenience is inflicted ; there is no name on the 
summons to indicate to whom you are to state that you 
are dangerously ill, while 'personal attendance' to ex- 
plain your reason for exemption to the Court is abso- 
lutely insisted upon. If one had an infectious disorder, 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 213 

it would be a great temptation to accede to this pro- 
posal, and ' give it ' the Court. If you do go, you are 
hustled by ushers, and kept ' cooling your heels,' and 
much more delicate portions of your frame, in draughts, 
and told « to wait,' or that you are not wanted to-day, 
but must come to-morrow, and all this with an imper- 
tinence of manner that only belongs (with the excep- 
tion, perhaps, of an underling in a Government office) 
to a myrmidon of the law. If, on the other hand, you 
are one of the Elect, you have by no means the great 
advantages ascribed to persons in that condition. You 
will be shut up in a box without a lid to it, and have, 
perhaps, to listen for many days to arguments about the 
right of way through some moor or wood, where nobody 
in his senses, one would think, would ever want to go, 
and in which it is impossible to take the faintest interest 
—and all for twenty-one shillings by way of recompense. 
The jury system may be a necessity, for all I know ; 
but the victims who are sacrificed to it, and are the 
only persons concerned, from the judge to the door- 
keeper, who are not decently remunerated for their ser- 
vices, should at least be treated with civility and shield- 
ed from discomfort. It is not a personal matter, for, 
thank Heaven ! I have an infirmity which releases me 
from this obligation ; I am pleading for my fellow-crea- 
tures to whom this public service is made so abhorrent 
that— worse than soldiers who maim themselves to 
escape the military yoke— some of them will even pre- 
tend to have neither creed nor morals in order to evade 
it. And now— last grain that breaks the camel's back 
—a Judge has decreed that the consolations of lit- 
erature (even throughout a right-of-way case) must be 
denied to jurymen. Once in the box, they are to be 



214 NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 

spared not one syllable of forensic eloquence — the open- 
ing of the counsel, the contests between himself and 
his learned friend on the other side, the badgering of 
the witnesses, the summing-up of the Judge. To look 
at a newspaper is pronounced to be contempt of Court. 
Well, perhaps there is something to be said against 
newspapers : the newspaper has speeches in it, and may 
produce somnolency ; but would there be any harm in 
a juryman who is getting vertigo from a right-of-way 
case refreshing himself with a pocket novel, and then 
voting with his foreman or the majority, whichever 
seems to promise the quickest way out of his trouble ? 
I notice — if I may say as much without disrespect to 
any Commission, Parliamentary or otherwise — that 
wben Judges themselves have to act as jurymen they 
don't seem to like it. 



f 

There are some things which, though to the ordinary 
mind they seem perfectly right and natural, remain so 
long undone that when they are done one is as much 
tilled with amazement as though the discovery of their 
propriety had just been made. This is especially the 
case with reforms in the law. To every one of common 
sense the idea of shutting a criminal's mouth, from the 
moment he is taken into custody — ( 4 Take care what 
you say, my good-fellow; any admission you make will 
be used against you ') — to that of his acquittal or con- 
viction, has long seemed absurd and monstrous ; but 
lawyers have such a contemptuous pity — and such a 
precious sharp way of expressing it — for the opinions 
of laymen who venture to find fault with their pro- 
ceedings, that nobody who values his nose dares open 
his mouth. On the other hand, when a reform does 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 215 

take place, it must be admitted there is nobody like 
your Attorney-General (though it is generally one that 
is out of office) for pointing out i the absurd, chaotic, 
and intolerable ' state of affairs that has so long been 
permitted to exist. It has at last been decided that 
in place of one's counsel being instructed by one's 
solicitor to state that at the proper time and place we 
shall have a complete explanation to offer respecting 
our very suspicious conduct, one may get into the 
witness-box and explain it one's self in five minutes. 
I wonder how long it will be before the legal mind will 
discover that deeds affecting all we have in the world 
should be written in the English language, and also in 
the English character, so that we can read them with- 
out vertigo? I am informed (not, indeed by an Attor- 
ney-General, but by one who means to be one) that, in 
nine cases out of ten, every legal document now in 
hieroglvphic and on parchment, might, for all practical 
purposes, just as well be printed with the type- writer 
on ordinary paper. Then why isn't it ? 



When the ' Flying Scotchman ' was blocked by the 
snow the other day, a Scotch Duke with Conservative 
leanings was rescued from the train by a Radical M.P., 
and hospitably entertained at his country seat. This 
has suggested the remark to a serious-minded journalist 
that it would be well, indeed, if the leaders of all the 
sects in Christendom could be snowed up together for 
a night, that they might 'learn how much humanity 
they had in common, and what comfort there is in 
mutual helpfulness.' He ought to have said that 'the 
survivors ' would learn it. A first-class carriage 
filled by the Pope, Mr. Spurgeon, Mr. Bradlaugb, Mr, 



216 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

Swinburne, Professor Huxley, and Mr. Hampden, 
junior (who thinks the world is 'flat,' in a different 
sense from that in which it appeared to Hamlet), would 
not in my opinion be good company. Mr. Bradlaugh 
would probably be the only one of them who could be 
depended upon not to — well, extract from the Com- 
mination Service. And yet there are dinner-givers in 
the fashionable world who pride themselves upon 
bringing people together who would otherwise, from 
their well-known antagonism, never meet. Their object, 
however, is less to afford an agreeable evening to their 
guests than to earn a reputation for themselves as 
lion-tamers. Dr. Johnson's invitation to meet Wilkes 
is the only instance in favor of this mixture of con- 
flicting elements ; and, to those who can read between 
the lines, it i^ evident that their mutual forbearance 
was owing to the fact that they were both horribly 
afraid of one another. It is very well for large-minded 
persons (like the reader) to aver that they are never 
put out by the expression of antagonistic opinions — 
but they don't like the people that hold them. 



The system of 4 fagging ' at the public schools used 
to be defended upon the ground that it discounte- 
nanced bullying. The theory was that under an author- 
ized system of superiors and inferiors there would be 
less individual oppression ; but it somehow happened 
that the small boys reaped the benefit of both sides, and 
got • more kicks than halfpence ' than ever. However 
they secured that immense advantage of ' roughing it ' 
in its completeness to which certain old gentlemen 
refer, with such offensive boastfulness, 'as having 
made them the men they are,' that one is sometimes 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 9 217 

tempted to ask whether they could possibly have been 
worse without it. Whether ' fagging ' was practiced 
in Charterhouse in Thackeray's day I do not know, 
though his denunciation of it is most vehement ; but, 
I think, at that date, at all events, it was confined to 
the more aristocratic schools. It was one of the few 
extras that was not paid for, but was given in along 
with the ' tone.' In middle-class seminaries it had no 
existence. In the great Republic, of course, those 
humiliations have been always impossible which our 
juvenile Lord Algies and Berties used to put up with 
so patiently, and— if their young master was popular 
— even proudly, though, it must be confessed, to the 
outsider it seemed a strange sort of pride. ' Fagging ' 
has been much relaxed, and bullying greatly discour- 
aged in English schools of late, which makes the recent 
reports of the latter vice — under the name of ' hazing ' 
— in American schools the more remarkable. The ill- 
treatment of the younger cadets at West Point, for 
example, 'in the country of the free,' seems to be 
quite as bad as anything that used to take place, in the 
old days, at Woolwich or Sandhurst. ' One never sees 
three boys together,' says a great student of human 
nature, 4 but one of them is crying.' The psycholo- 
gists tell us that, in adolescence, when 4 the young 
man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,' his 
purified nature scorns to maltreat the companions of 
his own age, to worry the harmless necessary cat, or to 
play tip-cat with frogs that have not blown themselves 
out like the frog in the fable. But, in the meantime, 
why are boys such brutes ? 



I wonder how many 4 original ideas ' are indebted 



218 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

for their discovery to wits and humorists, which after- 
wards assume in other hands, though entirely without 
acknowledgment, a practical shape. It is common 
enough to see advertised nowadays some pleasure-trip 
Round the World, in a steam-yacht ; but ten years ago 
such an expedition had all the attraction of novelty. 
Yet in a play of nearly fifty years back the project was 
treated of, though with admirable humor, with a pre- 
cision that leaves nothing to be desired in the way of 
detail. It is a promoter of companies who speaks: 
4 We propose to hire a threedecker of the Lords of the 
Admiralty, and fit her up with every accommodation 
for families ; we've already advertised for wet nurses 
and maids-of-all-work. ... A delightful billiard- 
table in the ward-room, with, for the humbler classes, 
skittles ofi the orlop deck. Swings and archery for 
the ladies, trap-ball and cricket for the children, while 
the marine sportsman will find the stock of gulls 
unlimited. At every new country we shall drop an- 
chor for at least a week, that the children may go to 
school and learn the language ; while, for the conve- 
nience of lovers, the ship will carry a parson.' I wonder 
how many of my readers will remember that play — 
once so well thought of, and written by the greatest 
wit of his time ! 



'Strange that honey can't be got without hard 
money ! ' sings the poet, and the same thing can surely 
be averred, and with even greater force, of snowdrops ! 
Yet a British farmer has been found to prosecute two 
little children for plucking them in his paddock. If 
he had owned the fields of Enna, it is probable that he 
would have done the same to Proserpine herself for 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 219 

gathering flowers, only he would not have sacrificed 
her to Pluto, but to Plutus. If it had been the crocus, 
one could imagine its golden hue to have given it some 
sort of fictitious value in his greedy eyes ; but the snow- 
drop ! It is difficult, I hope, for most people to con- 
ceive the nature of a man who would wish to send a 
child to jail for such an offence. I have not one 
word to say for this churl ; but the general indignation 
he has aroused, it strikes me, might take a more useful 
and broader channel. Farmers nowadays are in great 
straits, and it is possible that a crop of snowdrops at a 
penny- a bunch in the London market may be worth 
their consideration. What is far more discreditable 
is the selfishness of some of our great landowners, who 
would keep the children's feet off the very grass. I 
know a park, not an hour's journey from town, through 
which there is a right of wa}-, and where, in summer- 
time, there are men employed by its noble proprietor 
to warn all passers-by to keep to the road. He forbids 
the dusty wayfarer to cool his feet even for a moment 
on the greensward. The ' warners,' poor fellows, are 
dreadfully ashamed of their office. 'It is my lord's 
will,' they say apologetically, as though they would 
have added,' ' and you know the sort of man he is.' I 
remember on one occasion seeing a contest between 
them and a sort of comic village Hampden, who per- 
sisted in sitting down on the grass. ' Touch me if you 
dare,' he said, i and I'll bring an action against you for 
assault. I've got my feet on your beastly road.' The 
distinction was too subtle for them, and I left him 
sitting, and the 4 warners ' watching him with doubtful 
looks. The snowdrop farmer was, doubtless, a surly 
dog, but, to my mind, not so utterly contemptible as 
this other, though he had a coronet for his collar. 



220 NOTES FHOM THE 'NEWS, 

The inequality of udicial sentences is complained of 
daily, as it it were a new thing; but whenever what is 
called ' discretionary power ' is left in the hands of one 
who has no discretion, miscarriages of justice must 
needs take place. They are neither more frequent nor 
worse than they used to be, though of course we hear 
much more of them. Seventy years ago two men stole 
some fowls in Suffolk. One of them was caught at 
once and tried by Judge Buller, who, not thinking his 
crime very serious, gave him three months' imprison- 
ment. The other was arrested some time afterwards, 
and, being found guilty at the next Assizes, was sen- 
tenced by Judge Gould to seven years' transportation. 
4 It so happened,' says the chronicler, with quaint in- 
difference, 4 tflat the one man was leaving prison at the 
expiration of his punishment, at the very time the 
other was setting out for Botany Bay.' 

The accusations of the wholesome literature societies 
against ' highwayman stories ' are, no doubt, well 
founded, though I think they are exaggerated. The 
natures that are attracted by the violent delights of 
robbery and manslaughter are not imaginative, nor 
given to literature of any kind. Stories which treat of 
actual vice, though disgusting to cultured minds, are 
very attractive (however well-meaning folk may maun- 
der to the contrary) to coarse ones ; but crime, in my 
opinion, is under very small obligations to letters. It 
ought, of course, to be under none at all ; but the steps 
taken by the societies in question to prevent it are, 
to say the truth, not calculated to effect their object. 
The 4 pure literature ' they furnish is of such a very 
milk-and-watery character that, so far from winning 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 221 

readers from their pabulum of lawless peril, it attracts 
no one. One is almost tempted to say of it what the 
poet sang of the aesthetic lover of sunflowers, that ' if 
he's content with a vegetable love, it will certainly not 
do for me ! ' It is surely possible to be moral, and yet 
not so deadly dull. The same difficulty seems to ob- 
struct the success of the teetotalers. They exclaim, 
4 No alcohol ! ' but the drinks they offer in place of it 
are all of them more or less sickly and distasteful, and 
too much like ' the excellent substitutes for butter at 
breakfast.' If a drink could be concocted with no spirit 
in it, but which was really attractive to the palate, half 
the temperance battle would be won. Why is not a re- 
ward offered for its discovery. Similarly, why do not 
the pure literature societies, instead of producing 
stories which remind one of the immortal parody upon 
Hans Christian Andersen (' And lo, in the morning, 
the foot of the peasant had trodden on the flower that 
the child had planted upon his mother's uncle's grave '), 
get Mr. Stevenson, or somebody (no, my cynical 
friend : ' Terms will not be sent on application ' ), to 
supply them with stories for the masses that shall be 
pure as snow, but not so soft and cold, and with a fine 
flavor of adventure in them ? 



When I read in my weekly newspaper a month ago 
or so, under the heading ' Miscellaneous,' that a private 
in the Royal Marines had suddenly inherited half a 
million of money, I anticipated amusement. It was not 
difficult to imagine that that worthy soldier would 
become well thought of, and that the etiquette which 
separates the bombardier from the commissioned officer 
would be waived. If, as has lately happened, the 



222 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 

maiden fancy of the daughter of a noble house can 
stoop to a policeman on a pound a week, how much more 
likely that that of 4 the daughters of the regiment ' (that 
is, of the officers of the regiment) should settle on a 
soldier with <£400 a week ! It was only in the nature 
of things that needy majors should borrow money of 
him, and good-natured lieutenants teach him games of 
cards. Of all this I made a humorous picture in my 
mind ; but, as it has turned out, far short of the fun of 
the reality, for the story of this (semi-) millionaire of 
the marines ought, it seems, to have been told to the 
Horse Marines. Nobody has ever left him a penny. 
All those who have pressed upon him the offer of a 
lifelong friendship (and, what is of more consequence, 
a little money in advance of his expectations) have 
been the victims of his perfervid imagination. He has 
left the army (as they all advised him to do), but 
without leaving his address. His wife, indeed, takes in 
washing at her usual humble residence ; but they don't 
want her, they want her husband, the (semi-) million- 
aire who has taken them in. The roll-call is called in 
vaii, so far as he is concerned. His military career is 
closed ; but his name will live in army circles as long 
as that of many a much more highly decorated warrior. 
In the long night of winter, ' when the kid turns on 
the spit,' the story of his 4 kidding ' will enliven both 
the canteen and the mess-table. 



One is compelled to maintain one's wife — though 
not indeed in a high state of efficiency — but there is 
no such responsibility as regards one's w T idow. A tes- 
tator has just proved his independence in that respect, 
by bequeathing his consort just nothing at all. She is 



NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 223 

his relict, but only in name. He has followed the 
example of 4 the pious founder,' with a difference : his 
wealth has gone to * religious purposes,' but on the 
principle of quick returns and small profits. He has 
no desire for the gratitude of unborn generations. 
Through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault no 
pealing anthem will swell the note of praise for his 
money. He has distributed it among a lot of chapels, 
not to their building funds, but to the people who go 
to them. This is the way, he has justly concluded, to 
make the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom 
in the dust immediately : there is no time lost, as in the 
planting of trees ; it is like sowing mignonette. The 
1 Judge, compelled to ratify the arrangement, has ex- 
i pressed his regret that the law has so decided it. Per- 
j haps he sympathized with the widow ; perhaps he was 
jealous of the religious body to which the deceased be- 
longed, and regretted that his own convictions pre- 
vented him from sharing the pecuniary advantage they 
derived from chapel-going. In the meantime, however, 
the congregations have increased, and the secret of how 
to ensure attendance at public worship appears to have 
been discovered. 



THE END. 



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